Air India officials on Thursday met Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy to explore prospects of reviving flight services through the Puducherry airport.
The preliminary meeting follows the Puducherry Government inking a tripartite MoU recently under the Regional Connectivity Scheme with the Centre and the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
Air India’s budget wing, Alliance Air had been operating flights between Puducherry and Bengaluru since April 2015.
The operator suspended services in October following a dispute with the Government over subsidy allocation.
Since then, the Government has been in talks with various airline/chopper operators to revive air connectivity. The tripartite agreement envisages operationalising flights by January 2017.
The Government is proposing to have air connectivity to and from nearby cities, mostly lying within 500-km radius, and has pegged the airfare at Rs. 2,500 between potential destinations such as Bengaluru and Kochi. The agreement is based on 80:20 cost-sharing ratio between the Centre and the Union Territory.
