Surat: Deccan Charters Limited (DCL) has called off its flight service on Surat-Bhavnagar route due to increased cost of operations and want of passenger traffic.
The Airport Authority of India (AAI) authorities said DCL submitted an official letter on Friday intimating that it wanted to terminate the Surat-Bhavnagar operations with effect from March 31 and that it wished to surrender the office space and other facilities at Surat airport.
Diamantaires in world's biggest diamond cutting and polishing centre in Surat seem to have been a big disappointment for DCL. The airline company, operating shuttle services between Surat and Bhavnagar five days a week, was not able to break even due to want of traffic.
Anticipating good amount of traffic due to presence of diamantaires hailing from Bhavnagar and diamond cutting and polishing job work going there from Surat, DCL had included Bhavnagar in its intra-state flight service operations in August 2012. In just a few months of connecting Surat with Bhavnagar, the company started facing problems as far as passenger traffic was concerned.
31/03/13 Times of India
