Air Italy to start more flights to Amritsar

Air Italy has introduced a direct flight once a week to Amritsar and will increase it to twice a week next month.

"B4 for your", an Italian travel agency of a person of Punjabi origin, has taken the initiative to start the air service.

"Delhi-bound flights from Italy earlier took long hours, including transit time," said Raghvir Singh, managing director of Air Italy, adding that by September Air Italy would operate two flights a week to Amritsar and three by December, depending on the rush.

He said new flights from Italy would be successful in promoting religious tourism also. For "Amritdhari Sikhs", special Punjabi food would be served and even the crew would converse with them in their own language. "The main problem for a person visiting Italy for the first time is that they find difficulty in communication," he claimed.

"We have talked to the state government, which encouraged us to start the flight because in the near future, it wanted to promote the state in general and Amritsar in particular as main centre of religious tourism," he said.