Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday inaugurated direct flight on Shillong–Dibrugarh sector, reported news agency ANI.
In September this year, Shillong airport saw over 5,000 passengers. We are committed to improving air connectivity to and within the North East region, Jyotiraditya Scindia was quoted as saying by ANI.
Earlier on October 18, Jyotiraditya Scindia had virtually flagged of an Alliance Air flight that connects Kolkata with northeastern cities, including Guwahati, Aizawl and Shillong.
The Alliance Air flight will traverse on the Kolkata-Guwahati-Aizwal-Shillong route four days a week, the ministry's statement noted. Alliance Air will be operating this flight using its ATR-72 aircraft, the Civil Aviation Ministry.
Scindia had said that most of the ATR-72 aircraft of Alliance Air are deployed on the northeastern routes. "Today, we are further establishing seamless connectivity across entire northeast India by connecting four cities with one flight," he stated.
Earlier, Jyotiraditya Scindia had said that due to constructive policies of the Centre, domestic air traffic reached its highest level on Sunday since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic last year.
Before the pandemic struck, India's daily domestic air traffic was approximately 4.25 lakh passengers. The Centre had suspended all scheduled domestic flights from March 25, 2020, to May 25, 2020, as part of the coronavirus-induced lockdown.
"Owing to the constructive policies of the government, domestic air traffic has seen the highest level, post the onset of the pandemic," Scindia had tweeted.
"The civil aviation sector in India thrives amidst unprecedented challenges, whilst we make every effort to return to normalcy as early as possible," he added.
When the government resumed scheduled domestic services on May 25, 2020, it permitted airlines to operate just 33 per cent of their pre-Covid domestic flights. This capacity was gradually increased with time. Ultimately, on October 12, the Centre announced that airlines can operate domestic flights without any capacity restriction from October 18 onwards.
(With inputs from ANI and PTI)
