Air Deccan to fly to Kangra and Salem

As it flew the first civil aircraft to Pathankot, bringing the strategically located Punjab district on the country's civil aviation map, low-cost carrier Air Deccan spelt plans to fly to many other destinations where no airline goes on date. In the process, the airline made it clear its strategy was to develop regional routes in order to augment its traffic on trunk routes. "We have plans to begin operations to Kangra, Jamshedpur, Bodhgaya, Cooch Behar, Mysore, Salem and Ludhiana in the near future. Kangra airport is ready and all clearances have been obtained for the airport at Jamshedpur which is a private airport owned by Tatas," Air Deccan's managing director G.R. Gopinath said. Civil Aviation minister Praful Patel also confirmed that operations at Kangra were likely to begin in 2-3 months with Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra saying that the runway and terminal building were almost ready there. Air Deccan had recently begun flights to Kullu which the airline claims is running packed with a 95 per cent load-factor ever since its launch.

"We hope to begin operations on Kolkata-Jamshedpur, Kolkata-Bodhgaya and Chennai-Salem sectors soon," Gopinath added saying that Air Deccan was in talks with the government to begin operations at 15-odd airports across the country. Emphasising the need to break the Delhi-Mumbai centric traffic patterns, Gopinath said that the way forward "was to go to small towns like Dehradun, Gwalior, Kolhapur, Belgaum and Hubli". "The idea is to develop regional connectivity so that it helps your trunk route business. Otherwise, we will only keep on cannibalizing Jet Airways and Indian Airlines. For instance, if you have a Delhi-Pathankot flight, a passenger wanting to fly from Pathankot to Mumbai will now have the option to fly with us from Pathankot to Delhi and get a connecting flight to Mumbai," Gopinath said. On the commercial viability of having daily flights on a route like Delhi-Pathankot, Gopinath said, "We think that providing connectivity to Pathankot will help us in the longer run. The fact that it is strategically located, bordering Jammu, Himachal Pradesh and also has a huge defence establishment will provide us an opportunity to both the business travelers and the tourists."

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