The Punjabi diaspora numbering around 10 million—with the highest numbers in Britain, North America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East—have been demanding direct air links with Amritsar, the only city with an international airport in the state of Punjab.
Amritsar is not only the spiritual and cultural center for the Sikh religion, it is also the main gateway for the state.
Demand Utilization
The Amritsar Vikas Manch (literally the organization for Amritsar’s development) has pointed out that the Guru Ramdas Airport Amritsar, as the international airport is known, was not being utilized to its fullest extent. Some time ago Dr. Charanjit Singh Gumtala from the Manch shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put pressure on the federal government to ensure that the international airport gets business.
Seek Hub Status 
The Manch requested the Prime Minister make Amritsar into a hub like Delhi so that direct flights to London, Birmingham, Toronto, Vancouver, and New York could be introduced.
“The traffic profile demands it and the Punjabi diaspora needs it,” the letter said.
The immediate demand was the restoration of the Amritsar-Birmingham and the Amritsar-London flights.
According to Gumtala, Air India had seven flights a week from Amritsar to London and seven to Birmingham, but all were through Delhi.
Since these flights were not direct, they were unsuitable for perishable cargo.
As a result, vegetables, flowers, and fruits that can be exported from Punjab and neighboring state of Himachal Pradesh were being sent by road to Delhi.
The Back & Forth
The AVM also wrote a letter to Air India to find out if direct flights could be restored. The reply from Air India said:
“Air India currently offers the following services ex-Amritsar to UK-Amritsar-Delhi-London: 7 flights/week and Amritsar-Delhi-Birmingham: 7 flights/week.
“The routing of the Amritsar-London and Amritsar-Birmingham flights via Delhi enables AI to get traffic to/from Delhi and the feeder traffic from other Indian cities as well as international cities in the South East Asian, SAARC, and other regions since Delhi is AI’s hub for domestic as well as international services.
“The major share of passengers on Amritsar/Delhi/Birmingham and Amritsar/Delhi/London flights is contributed by Delhi.
“In addition to the above, Air India is also able to offer seamless connectivity for Amritsar passengers via Delhi to other international destinations,” the AI letter concluded.
AVM countered that both Air India flights had incurred losses in the last fiscal year, which ended on March 31, 2014.
The Amritsar-Delhi-London had a loss of $35 million (Rs 226 crore) with a load factor of 78.21 percent, while the second flight to Birmingham saw a loss of $24 million (Rs 154 crore) with a load factor of 72.02 percent.
Road To Profits?
According to Dr. Gumtala, “Both the flights could be profitable if they were rerouted and made direct flights and instead of using two aircrafts, one would suffice since it would take an hour less to fly to London from Amritsar.
“As for perishable exports, the airport would be able to earn $1.5 million annually through direct flights,” he said.
Indeed, the airport at Amritsar is strategically located.
Nearly two and a half million people from the districts surrounding the airport are in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. According to residents, Amritsar was capable of generating cargo as well as 300-odd passengers for each of the cities of Birmingham, Toronto, Vancouver, and London.
Citing the example of the airports of the south that have regular flights to the Middle East, Amritsar too could have flights to Britain and Canada.
Towards the end of 2011, a senior AAI official had gone on record to mention that “keeping in view the enormous potential of cargo in the region, especially taking into consideration that this being the richest NRI (Non Resident Indian) belt coupled with the ever-increasing tourist attraction of the region,” Amritsar airport was “provisioning a commensurate air cargo complex to handle activities such as bonded cargo trucking, air cargo community system, courier/express cargo handling, etc.”
According to Amritsar airport’s Director V. Venkateswara Rao, the airport was handling around 55 tons for export and five tons of imports every month.
Domestic cargo totaled 25 tons a month. Incidentally, the airport’s cargo setup has been enhanced over the years by airport operator Airports Authority of India.
In fact, in a recent initiative, AAI launched plans to boost domestic cargo tonnages by refurbishing unused passenger terminals at regional airports after minor modifications to create common-user domestic cargo and courier terminals, anf Amritsar was among the locations identified.
Stay tuned…
Tirthankar Ghosh
