Aiming at connecting tier-II cities with metros, Air India today launched a daily Delhi-Gwalior-Mumbai-Gwalior-Delhi flight and has plans to launch five to six more such flights in the coming months.
"After this, Air India will be launching the Delhi-Ranchi-Kolkata flight very soon with an aim to connect the non-metro cities with metros," civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi said after flagging off Gwalior-Mumbai flight at Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindhia airport in Gwalior today.
The national carrier has now connected historical city of Gwalior with India's financial capital, Mumbai.
The airline had been operating a Delhi-Gwalior flight with an ATR aircraft thrice a week, but now it would be operating on the route with a 122-seater Airbus 319 daily.
About the proposed introduction of more flights, Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav said the airline would be launching more such flights this summer.
"Our effort is to provide air connectivity to tier-II cities with metros, since most of the slots for the direct flights were full, these flights would provide better connectivity to both the metros and the tier-II cities," Jadhav said.
As in Kolkata, we have a demand for additional frequency but we are unable to get a prime slot, so we would be flying to Ranchi and then to Kolkata, he said, adding this would not only provide connectivity to Ranchi but also provide one more flight to Kolkata.
Jadhav said the times were changing, "so I have asked my marketing team to find more such routes".
The Delhi-Gwalior-Mumbai flight AI-421 would depart at 1400 hours from Delhi, reach Gwalior at 1440 hours and would take off from Gwalior at 1505 hours to reach Mumbai at 1635 hours.
On the return leg, flight AI 422 would leave Mumbai at 1500 hours and arrive Gwalior at 1630 hours and depart from Gwalior at 1655 hours and reach Delhi at 1753 hours.
Minister of state for commerce and industry Jyotiraditya Scindia was also present during the ceremony.
The inaugural flight witnessed almost full load as there were 83 passengers in Gwalior-Mumbai flight while 110 in Gwalior-Delhi flight.
