For improving the inter-state air connectivity in Northeast, a senior Airports Authority of India (AAI) official has requested several airlines to keep an aircraft exclusively for the region.
“Movement within NER (Northeast region) is difficult, unsafe, time-consuming and costly by other means,” reported Hindustan Times quoting AAI’s regional executive director for Northeast, Sanjeev Jindal.
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Jindal on October 1 had written separate letters to top officials of Trujet, SpiceJet and Indigo airlines.
Jindal suggested of stationing a small aircraft like ATR at one of the stations such as Guwahati/Shillong/Lengpui so that it connects different airports.
“It will be a profitable sector at one hand as well as it will be a turning point for the Northeast region,” Jindal added.
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There are 21 airports in the Northeast and out of these, only 12 are functional.
Guwahati is connected to 8 out of 12 functional airports.
Most airports in the region have a few flights and they mostly connect to Guwahati or Kolkata and Delhi.
Shilong and Dimapur airports have flights to Kolkata and Pasighat (Arunachal Pradesh) and Lilabari (Assam) have flights only for Guwahati apart from a flight to both the airports.
Aizawl airport (Mizoram) has 10 flights a week that fly to Kolkata and Imphal.
Jindal, in his letter, said that since the region has a lot of potential travellers including tourists, hence a small aircraft would be quite handy and be a “game-changer”.