Air passengers from Coimbatore welcomewinter schedule to metro cities

COIMBATORE: Both the business and student communities in the city have welcomed the new winter flight schedule.
After many industrial associations, travel agents and passengers began complaining about the lack of adequate flight connectivity and early morning flights to metro cities, Jet Airways and Spice Jet have stepped forward to fill those gaps. From October 31, Jet Airways will operate a 5.45am flight to New Delhi, 6.45am flight to Bengaluru and an 8.35am flight to Chennai. These flights will ensure that passengers land in their destinations by 9.45am.

The schedule, which shows an overall increase in flights, is also expected to result in a drop in flight fares, which recently shot up due to an increase in aviation fuel prices.

Additionally, Jet Airways has introduced an afternoon flight to Pune at 2.40pm, in addition to the 3am flight to the city and a 2.25pm flight to Hyderabad. Spice Jet has announced three new services from October, including an 11.40am flight to New Delhi and two new flights to Bangalore—11am and 5.45pm. “While there was a growing demand for direct flights to Hyderabad, there was a gap in connectivity to the city, which was the reason we decided to fill the gap,” a Jet Airways official said.

Welcoming the winter schedule, passengers said that their demand for better domestic connectivity has been met. “The three morning flights to New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, which allow us to enter those cities at 10am, will help us save one day and night’s accommodation. There are also additional return flights, which allow us to even fly back from New Delhi in the evening, saving us the cost of staying a night and flying out only the next morning,” said director of Kongu Global Forum, D Nandhakumar. “We are finally seeing our efforts bearing fruits,” he told TOI.

While the additional flights are welcomed, industrialists hope the addition of seats also help bring down the cost of air travel from Coimbatore. “Tickets from Coimbatore to any location is still the most expensive, despite the flights flying in and out of the city having 90% occupancy rate. The afternoon, late night and early morning flight timings can also be reviewed and tweaked to be more suitable,” said Ravi Sam, former chairman of CII Tamil Nadu State Council.