Uttar Pradesh: More tourist places to have air connectivity soon

Lucknow: Soon small towns of Uttar Pradesh — Shrawasti, Chitrakoot and Sonbhadra would have air connectivity with bigger cities of country. These towns are of great interest to religious and nature loving tourists all across the world. Besides, the state government is also planning to make airports at Aligarh and Azamgarh functional.

While inaugurating new air services of Air Asia from Lucknow to New Delhi, Mumbai and Goa on Friday, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that soon more cities in the state would have air connectivity. He said that five years back Lucknow had air services for 15 cities only while today there are flights for more than 30 cities of country. He said that connectivity plays an important role in the development and that is why his government is focusing on the construction of expressways and airports.

Recently, the UP government has signed MoU with the Airport Authority of India (AAI) for creating infrastructure at airports in the state. The CM said that very soon there would be passenger flight from Aligarh, Azamgarh, Shrawasti, Chitrakoot and Sonbhadra.

UP CM said that upcoming Noida International Airport would become the new logistic gateway of north India. The new airport at Noida will not only provide employment to lakhs of people but also become a hub for the maintenance of aircrafts.

Last month, the UP government had announced MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) policy through which the Noida airport would be able to start maintenance of aircraft from entire country as well as foreign.

CM Yogi said that with the commencement of Air Asia service for New Delhi, Mumbai and Goa there would relief to air passengers while very soon flights to Kolkata and Bengaluru would start. He said that before 2017 only Lucknow and Varanasi airports in UP were functional while few flights were operating from Gorakhpur and Agra. Now there are nine functional airports in UP, he added.