The Union Civil Aviation Ministry on Thursday informed the Madras High Court Bench here that it had permitted private airliner SpiceJet to fly to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur from Madurai but the airliner had chosen to operate flights only to Dubai and Colombo, probably because of lack of patronage. Assistant Solicitor General G.R. Swaminathan told a Division Bench of Justices S. Nagamuthu and M.V. Muralidaran that the demand and supply in the market determines the destinations to which an airline would want to serve and that it was completely up to the permit holder to fly or not to fly between two places. After recording his submissions, a Division Bench of Justices S. Nagamuthu and M.V. Muralidaran dismissed a public interest litigation petition filed by a city-based doctor J. Mahendra Varman seeking a direction to the Centre to permit both Indian and foreign carriers to fly to more number of international destinations from here. Dismissing the PIL petition pending since 2013, the judges said that the ASG had also made a categorical submission before the High Court that no application filed by any other airliner, for operating flights from the airport here to international destinations, was pending before the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation.
In his affidavit, the petitioner had claimed that as per statistics posted by Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation on its website, 62.76 lakh domestic tourists and 2.56 lakh foreigners had visited Madurai in 2009. Hence, he impressed upon the need for air connectivity between Madurai and more international destinations.
