In what might boost the ‘Act East policy’, country’s national carrier, Air India is planning to have direct air connectivity with Kunming in China and Bangkok as well as to introduce several flights connecting Guwahati with Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai.
Chairman cum Managing Director of the Air India, Ashwani lohani said this while interacting with the industry associations here on Friday. “We are introducing daily Guwahati-Kolkata flight and planning to introduce Guwahati-Delhi flights,” he said adding that industry bodies like the CII has been seeking direct flights between Guwahati-Bangkok and Guwahati-Kunming thrice a week.
“We are planning to introduce these flights. However we are seeking views from travel agents,” he added.
It may be mentioned here that the BJP-led Assam Government is keen on having Guwahati-Kunming flight. In 2002, Guwahat-Bangkok flight was introduced which was operated by Air India. However, the weekly flight was grounded in 2008.
“By September this year we will introduce Guwahati-Dibrugarh-Pasighat (Arunachal Pradesh) flight. In winters we will introduce Guwahati-Mumbai flight. There is also demand for Guwahati -Hyderabad direct connectivity,” lohani said.
He said that Air India operates around 24 flights every day in North East region and has a market share of 17 per cent and added that the Air India flights has occupancy rate of around 73 per cent in the region. North Eastern Council (NEC) has come up with viability gap funding. In 2015-16, NEC paid Rs34.89 crore and in 2016-17 around Rs39.97 crore was paid to Air India.
lohani said that Air India is in the process of inducting 10 ATR flights besides 29 airbus on lease. “We are grounding old aircrafts. We are also inducting 7 widebody aircrafts,” he said. He, however, refused to comment when asked on the proposed disinvestment of Air India.