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Air Deccan flight from Delhi to Srinagar begins

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Press Trust Of India Srinagar
With the inauguration of a direct flight from Delhi to Srinagar, Deccan Aviation, which operates Air Deccan, announced on Tuesday the low-cost airline would concentrate on increasing the connectivity within Jammu & Kashmir.
 
J&K Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said the airport was now handling almost 50 flights per week. "Now we will like to see that inter-connectivity between Srinagar, Jammu and Leh increases with small aircraft landing at small airstrips like Kargil, Poonch, Kishtawar", he said.
 
This statement immediately evoked a prompt response from Air Deccan Chairman and Managing Director GR Gopinath, who said he would like to venture into this area as his airline had a 50-seater turbo-prop ATR aircraft, which could land at small airstrips like the one in Kargil.
 
He also assured a serious consideration of the chief minister's suggestion for connecting tourist spots like Pehalgham, Gulmarg, Sonamarg (Kashmir), Chishul and Drass (Ladakh) and Poonch and Kishtawar (Jammu) with helicopter.
 
With today's flight to Srinagar, Air Deccan became the airline with the largest network in the country. It is operating on 45 destinations, surpassing et Airways, which flies to 44 destinations, Gopinath said.
 
Azad said, "We will try to re-double our efforts during summer to create the necessary infrastructure." The chief minister said the aviation sector had the weakest link with J&K. but now the tables have turned and we have good connectivity, which is necessary for promoting tourism in the state.
 
He said his government would also lay a special emphasis for next two years on creating necessary infrastructure like hotels and other things, which were important for the tourism sector.
 
Later, azad flagged off the return flight of air deccan from srinagar airport.

 
 

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First Published: Dec 08 2005 | 12:00 AM IST

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