Fliers in the city might soon get more choices if the talks between the Puducherry Government and a few other airline operators succeed.
The Puducherry airport had remained idle for nearly a year after private carrier Spice Jet, which introduced its flight service on the Puducherry-Bengaluru sector on January 2013, discontinued its services in February 2014 stating that their operations were not financially viable.
Among the various operators wooed by the government, it was eventually Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Air India that ventured to operate a 48-seater ATR 42-320 flight on the Bengaluru-Puducherry sector. Alliance Air launched operations amid fanfare from April 14, 2015.
Though the response for the Bengaluru flight has been encouraging the demand is skewed mostly towards the weekends.
Vineet Bhalla, Manager, Alliance Air, says the traffic has been reasonably good. When asked if there are plans to increase the frequency of flights, he said the airlines would watch the progress for about six months before taking a call on this.
Alliance Air has been operating the Bengaluru-Puducherry flight under the Viability Gap Funding (VGP) scheme offered by the government where it is compensated as a means offsetting losses from potential empty seats.
In October, 2014, the government had announced the framework of its VGF scheme where Rs. 1,000 each would be offered for an aggregate of 200 seats on a daily basis, subject to a cap of 50 seats or a sum of Rs. 50,000 per fixed wing/rotary aircraft.
The inclusion of rotary aircraft in the VGF scheme was done keeping in mind expectations of chopper services being launched in the Puducherry-Chennai, Puducherry-Karaikal and Karaikal-Chennai routes.
“The Puducherry Government has been holding discussions with Air Pegasus on starting air services from the Puducherry Airport. The airline has evinced interest on operating flights on the Puducherry-Bengaluru-Thiruvananthapuram sector. Air Pegasus has been operating a flight on the Thiruvananthapuram-Bengaluru sector and the connecting flight could be made available to Puducherry,” Tourism Minister P. Rajavelu told The Hindu .
Based on the discussions, Air Pegasus has to submit proposal to the government with clearances. A decision will be taken by the government accordingly.
The government has also been holding discussions with Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited to start services on Puducherry-Karaikal-Puducherry and Chennai-Karaikal-Chennai sectors.
Pawan Hans gave some conditions and have submitted a proposal to the government, Mr. Rajavelu added.
Negotiations on
Director of Tourism R. Munisamy said that the government had sought the cooperation of Tamil Nadu Government for availability of 85 hectares of land for the expansion of the Puducherry airport runway.
Negotiations are continuing on this front with Puducherry engaged in persuading the Tamil Nadu Government to make available the required land to facilitate full-fledged operations.
