Jyotiraditya Scindia, the minister of civil aviation for the Union, announces on Monday that a regular flight between Hindon and Ludhiana will begin operating from Sahnewal airport in the summer.
Sanjeev Arora, a Rajya Sabha member for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), wrote to Scindia appealing to him not to cut off Ludhiana from major cities before Scindia made his announcement.
In response to the AAP leader’s Sanjeev Arora letter, Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia stated “The UDAN route ‘Hindon-Ludhiana-Hindon’ has been granted to M/s Big Charters with a nineteen-seater type of aircraft under UDAN 4.2 bidding round, which may commence operation in Summer Schedule, 2023.
He further informed Arora, mentioning that “he has circulated his request to all airlines for consideration of flights to Ludhiana.”
Alliance Air had a consistent service earlier between Hindon and Ludhiana. New Delhi Railway Station is located 24 kilometres from Hindon Airport in Ghaziabad. The route was run by Alliance Air for three years before it was suspended in August 2020.
“UDAN route “Ludhiana-Delhi-Ludhiana” was awarded to M/s Alliance Air in the first round of bidding that commenced on September 1, 2017. The Airline discontinued the operations to the route on August 31, 2020, after completion of three years tenure,” Scindia’s letter read.
“At present, there are no scheduled flight operations at Ludhiana airport,” he added.
With the vision of ‘Let the common citizen of the country fly’ was launched by the Government of India with the aim of Ude-Desh-Ka-Aam-Nagrik (UDAN), but some airports and UDAN operations in Punjab have not been reopened even after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Due to the bidding procedure and regulation timeline, flight services have been prohibited at the Ludhiana airport. The ministry is working to bring on board a different private airline to run a flight to and from Ludhiana so the people, particularly industrialists who had to take either a road trip or a flight to Delhi from Mohali, may travel conveniently.