FlyBig lends wings to Northeast's UDAN 4.0 dreams

GUWAHATI: Regional airline FlyBig has decided to lend its services in the northeast under UDAN 4.0, at a time several routes under the scheme have closed because of the pandemic.

JT Radhakrishna, the officiating regional executive director at the northeast regional headquarters of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), on Tuesday said, “FlyBig airline’s services are expected to be operational after mid-November this year. However, some new routes may also be made operational through the same airline by the end of this year or the next. We welcome FLyBig and expect their daily regular services here.”
“The CEO of FlyBig has informed that the airline is very much enthusiastic about their first operations in this beautiful part of the country,” read a statement by AAI.
The vital routes in the northeast that were operationalised under the previous phases of UDAN were Jorhat-Kolkata by Indigo and Lilabari-Kolkata by SpiceJet in phase-II, and Guwahati-Dimapur-Imphal by Alliance Air and Shillong-Kolkata by Indigo in phase-III. However, the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown had ruined all prospects, as the services initiated under UDAN remained suspended except for the Jorhat-Kolkata route.
The completely new routes in UDAN 4.0 include Imphal-Tezu, Rupsi-Kolkata, Aizawl-Tezpur, Agartala-Dibrugarh, Shillong-Passighat, Guwahati-Misa, Misa-Geleki, Geleki-Jorhat, Guwahati-Shillong and Shillong-Dibrugarh. But the routes that are likely to operate initially are from LGBI Airport in Guwahati and these include Guwahati-Passighat, Guwahati-Tezu-Imphal and Tezpur-Lengpui, the AAI statement said.
An AAI spokesperson said all the above mentioned sectors will have ATR-72 type aircraft in operations as informed by the airlines. Further, the Guwahati-Rupsi-Kolkata route has also been planned as soon as the Rupsi Airport in western Assam opens for flight operations in the 2020-21 financial year.
Smaller aircraft are the future of the UDAN programme and as far as the northeast region is concerned. More routes are expected to be open for regional connectivity as identified by the government in UDAN 4.0. These aircraft have a seating capacity of about 42-80, which are favourable for regional connectivity and suitable for smaller airports.
Of the 78 routes identified by the Union ministry of civil aviation under the UDAN 4.0 programme, the northeastern region has 40 under this regional connectivity scheme, which is expected to increase intra-regional connections, besides connecting the smaller towns with metro cities.