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Aviation
News
Jet
Airways starts Colombo flight from Chennai
Chennai:
India's leading private airlines Jet Airways on Tuesday
launched its maiden international flight to Colombo
from Chennai following the government's open sky policy.
Jet Airways has been given a go-ahead to fly to Colombo
from Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai.
Jet Airways officials organised a multi-religion prayer
meeting before the inaugural flight. Wolfgang Prock-Schauer,
chief executive officer, Jet Airways (India), described
it as an important step in the Indian aviation industry.
"Leaving emotions aside, it is very important for
the Indian aviation and the aviation in South Asia
in general because this market is growing. And after
one decade of domestic flying we are flying international.
This is our first step and we will grow further in
the international scene," he said.
Prock-Schauer
also said that the company planned to fly to other
SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation)
countries in the near future. "Right now we have allowance
to fly into the SAARC countries, we are looking also
at Nepal and Bangladesh and other SAARC countries
and we are waiting further approvals later this year
for other countries but for the time being we will
focus on the countries in South Asia," he added. At
present, Jet will operate a daily flight to Colombo,
but expects to get a clearance for 28 flights a week.
The national carrier, Indian Airlines offers 18 flights
a week to Colombo, which has fast emerged as an international
hub for onward connections to the Gulf, Europe and
the US.
The
Directorate-General Civil Aviation (DGCA) clearance
came nearly four months after Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee and his Sri Lankan counterpart, Ranil
Wickremesinghe, issued a joint communique during the
latter's visit to India in October, paving the way
for opening up skies for private domestic airlines
to fly to Colombo.
March
23, 2004
Dehradun
villagers refuse to relocation
(Go To Top)
Dehradun:
Residents of the Jailiganth village in Dehra Dun
district have refused to relocate as the government
plans to procure their land for the construction of
an airport. The 220-odd families living in the vicinity
of Jolly Grant airport, which is due for expansion,
have already been uprooted once from their ancestral
village near Tehri, the site of the world's fourth
biggest dam. Jolly Grant, located in Dehra Dun, is
the only airport in the Himalayan state, carved out
in 2000. The villagers say they have spent over a
decade, starting from scratch, rebuilding their lives
and homes in Jailiganth on the lands allotted to them
in compensation for their homes in Tehri.
In
a clear case of absolute lack of planning, the state
government is yet again ready with a relocation package
and are offering the residents 75,000 to 80,000 rupees
as compensation for their land in Jailiganth. Angry
residents have refused to accept the deal saying they
cannot suffer another displacement. "We will not take
any money. We are settled here..it's been 22 years
since we have been living here. We have worked hard
to make this land cultivable...now when the time has
come for us to get all the benefits, they are asking
us to vacate," Darshan Lal, a villager, said. Authorities
say they are taking a humanitarian view of the issue
and would try and compensate the affected families.
"We have selected a few families who would be most
affected by the relocation and discussions are on
to provide them with compensation in the form of land,"
said Manisha Panwar, district magistrate, Dehra Dun.
Villagers say they should be accommodated within the
Tehri rehabilitation package itself. The Tehri project
has been mired in controversy for over a decade as
issues concerning its safety to discontent with the
relocation, continuing to plague it.
March 19, 2004
Green
signal to Andaman-Bangkok flight (Go
To Top)
Port
Blair: Thailand's PB Air will launch the first
international charter flight from Bangkok to Port
Blair beginning tomorrow. "Curtain-raiser flights
from Bangkok to Port Blair are on March 18, 22 and
25," Samit Sawhny, Managing Director of the Barefoot
Group, which is organising the flights, said on Wednesday.
A full charter schedule will start on December 15,
2004 and run for a four-month season until April 15,
2005. Flights will operate weekly although efforts
are on to ensure a twice-weekly schedule, he said.
March 14, 2004
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