Chandigarh: Punjab Government urged the Government of India to resume domestic flights from Adampur (Jalandhar), Pathankot, Sahnewal and Bhatinda airports.

Presenting the case strongly, Principal Secretary Civil Aviation Rahul Bhandari, who attended an interactive session held with States / UTs on Udan, KrishiUdan, Aviation Security, Developments of Airports, Greenfield Airports, Heliports and Water Aerodromes here today, said that these airports were part of Regional Connectivity Service of Government of India. He said that during the Corona crisis the services from these airports were stopped.

However, Bhandari said that this has given a major blow to air connectivity in the region thereby creating lot of inconvenience to passengers.

The Principal Secretary said that this must be reversed and the GoI must immediately resume flights from these airports. He said that this will help in saving time, money and energy of people besides ensuring direct air connectivity across the country. Rahul Bhandari said that it will also give major fillip to the economic activity in the region.

Flagging another issue, the Principal Secretary urged the GoI to expedite the work on construction of civil terminal at Halwara airport. He said that the land for it has already been given by the Punjab government and work on this ambitious project to be completed at Rs 46 crore has already began. Rahul Bhandari said that the need of hour is to speed up the work for it’s early completion.

Dwelling on another issue, the Principal Secretary bemoaned that the terminal of Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport Chandigarh has been constructed on land falling in Revenue district of SAS Nagar, Mohali but unfortunately the name of Mohali is missing from airport’s name. He apprised the GoI that Punjab Chief Minister Mr Bhagwant Mann has already lodged a protest for not including name of city Mohali in the name of this airport adding that this legitimate demand should be looked into. Rahul Bhandari said that this will fulfil the long pending demand of the Punjabis.

Bhandari said that the starting of more international flights will help the NRIs brethren from Punjab to stay connected with their roots adding that people from not only Punjab but states of Jammu-Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand and others too will be benefitted from it.

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New Delhi: The upper and lower limits for domestic airfares will be removed on August 31 after a gap of nearly 27 months, informed the Union Ministry of Aviation.

Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia tweeted, “The decision to remove the prescribed limit for airfares has been taken after carefully analysing the daily demand and prices of oil used in aircraft (ATF).”

ATF prices have come down in the past few weeks after hitting record levels since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war.

On August 1, the price of ATF in the national capital was Rs 1.21 lakh per kilolitre, which was about 14 per cent less than the previous month.

On the resumption of air services on May 25, 2020, after a two-month lockdown due to the corona epidemic, the ministry had given a lower and upper hand for domestic airfares.

For instance, airlines could not charge a fare of less than Rs 2,900 (excluding GST) and more than Rs 8,800 (excluding GST) from any passenger for a domestic flight less than 40 minutes.

The post Domestic airfare caps removed from August 31 appeared first on TV Punjab | English News Channel.