New Delhi: Hampi in Karnataka, Gangtok in Sikkim, Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand and Shimla in Himachal Pradesh are among tourist destinations that have been unlocked since the Centre launched its flagship regional air connectivity scheme UDAN to bring unserved and underserved airports on the country’s aviation map.
And with nearly 11 lakh passengers flying in the first 20 months of the scheme when airlines started over 120 air routes to 37 unserved and underserved airports, experts in the travel and tourism industry believe that UDAN that started in April 2017 has also been instrumental in pulling crowds to destinations that until now were difficult to reach because they required extended road or rail journeys.
In its list of ‘52 Places to Go in 2019’, The New York Times placed archaeological centre Hampi at number two saying, “… the Unesco World Heritage site has been notoriously difficult to reach, until now. TruJet recently began daily direct flights from Hyderabad and Bangalore to Ballari, a 25-mile drive from Hampi.”
TruJet started its flight from Hyderabad to Vidyanagar on September 21, 2017, while its flight connecting the town to Bengaluru started on March 1, 2018. Before Vidyanagar, which is about 40 km from Hampi, the closest airport was Belgaum around 270 km away.
According to Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data for March 2018, the Bengaluru-Vidyanagar-Bengaluru route saw 2,820 passengers. A month before TruJet started flying under UDAN, only 60 people flew the same route. Between March-November 2018, 28,677 passengers flew on the route. While not all of them may have taken the UDAN flights or translated into footfalls at Hampi, the data show the demand potential for air connectivity at tourist spots in the country.
22/01/19 Pranav Mukul/Indian Express
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And with nearly 11 lakh passengers flying in the first 20 months of the scheme when airlines started over 120 air routes to 37 unserved and underserved airports, experts in the travel and tourism industry believe that UDAN that started in April 2017 has also been instrumental in pulling crowds to destinations that until now were difficult to reach because they required extended road or rail journeys.
In its list of ‘52 Places to Go in 2019’, The New York Times placed archaeological centre Hampi at number two saying, “… the Unesco World Heritage site has been notoriously difficult to reach, until now. TruJet recently began daily direct flights from Hyderabad and Bangalore to Ballari, a 25-mile drive from Hampi.”
TruJet started its flight from Hyderabad to Vidyanagar on September 21, 2017, while its flight connecting the town to Bengaluru started on March 1, 2018. Before Vidyanagar, which is about 40 km from Hampi, the closest airport was Belgaum around 270 km away.
According to Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data for March 2018, the Bengaluru-Vidyanagar-Bengaluru route saw 2,820 passengers. A month before TruJet started flying under UDAN, only 60 people flew the same route. Between March-November 2018, 28,677 passengers flew on the route. While not all of them may have taken the UDAN flights or translated into footfalls at Hampi, the data show the demand potential for air connectivity at tourist spots in the country.
22/01/19 Pranav Mukul/Indian Express
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