Fly directly to Amritsar from Patna now

PATNA: Public sector airline, Air India, launched its maiden flight (AI 725) between Patna and

Amritsar

on Sunday. It left the Jayaprakash Narayan International (JPNI) Airport at 10.55am and reached Amritsar at 1.15pm.


Patna airport’s assistant general manager (air traffic management) Santosh Kumar told this newspaper on Monday that the flight was given a water salute by the fire station. “This is the first direct flight operating between Patna and Amritsar on four days — Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Air India has also launched two more flights connecting Patna with Mumbai and Kolkata,” he said.

Now, Air India is operating six flights from the Patna airport. Earlier, it had three daily flights between Patna and Delhi.

According to Air India executives, the Patna-Amritsar flight was garnering positive response from customers. “Its fare is lesser than that of other flights. Also, it connects two religious places — Darbar Sahib in Amritsar and Takhat Shri Harimandir Ji Patna Sahib,” they said.

Air India wrote on its official Twitter account on Sunday: “Diwali became brighter with Air India connecting Mumbai with non-stop flights to Colombo and Kuwait. Direct AI flights to Mumbai, Amritsar and Kolkata also flagged off from Patna today (sic).”

With the introduction of three more flights, the city airport is now handling 49 flights — GoAir (12), IndiGo (19), SpiceJet (12) and Air India (6). It has direct flights to Lucknow, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Ranchi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Amritsar and Chennai.