AMRITSAR: The onset of 2021 summer season will connect Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport with more international and domestic destinations. The summer schedule in airline industry starts from March 29 and passengers will be able to fly to more destinations from Amritsar.
FlyAmritsar Initiative Global Convener and Amritsar Vikas Manch Overseas Secretary, Sameep Singh Gumtala informed that according to the schedule released by airlines on their website, from March 29 onwards, the holy city Airport will get directly connected to 8 international and 13 domestic destinations. The number of weekly flights will also be more due to the increase in frequency of flights to existing destinations. Increase in flights will also facilitate travel for devotees to reach Amritsar in April to attend programs for 400 years of Guru Teg Bahadur Gurpurab celebrations.
“Amritsar is now connected to more European destination than ever before by National carrier Air India and also to the UAE by other Indian private airline carriers, ” said Gumtala. Under the temporary air bubble agreements, Air India has opened bookings for one-weekly flights to Birmingham and London Heathrow Airport till end of October 2021. Airlines are currently allowed to fly only from Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru to London due to the new UK virus strain found earlier this year.
According to Gumtala, Air India has extended the booking of its one-weekly direct Amritsar-Rome flight till the end of May 2021. The airline is also going to operate twice weekly flights between Amritsar-Dubai till end of October 2021 and operate one-weekly flight to Abu Dhabi.
The low-cost carrier Indigo will operate 6-weekly flights to Sharjah, 3-weekly to Dubai and 1-weekly flight to Abu Dhabi. Spicejet has also opened bookings for 5-weekly direct flights to Ras-Al-Khaimah, started in January till end of April, and from May onwards to Dubai. Air India Express is also going to operate daily flights to Dubai and one weekly flight to Abu Dhabi.
Gumtala said, “With the addition of these flights, the holy city is now directly connected with all four major airports of UAE whereas before pandemic, it connected with only two destinations. Amritsar will now facilitate 26 weekly departures to UAE as compared to 21 before the pandemic.”
Qatar airways has also resumed its direct flights from Amritsar to Doha with 3 weekly flights, providing onwards connectivity to other countries according to the air bubble agreements with India.
Indigo will start new domestic direct flight from the city to Goa in April. With the addition of this route, Amritsar will be directly connected to 13 domestic destinations; Delhi, Mumbai, Srinagar Nanded, Patna, Jaipur, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Goa and through connections to Hyderabad, Chennai, Guwahati, said Gumtala.
Gumtala also informed that after many years, GoAir will return to Amritsar on March 28 by starting two daily flights from Delhi followed by Bengaluru and Mumbai direct flights on 29th April and 1st May, 2021. FlyAmritsar Initiative have been writing to GoAir with detailed statistics to start domestic and international flights from Amritsar.
Amritsar Vikas Manch President Manmohan Singh said, “The start of more flights will give a boost to the tourism sector in Amritsar that has been struggling due to the pandemic. We are thankful to Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri, Air India and request them to also start direct flights to Toronto & Vancouver in Canada.”