The Hindu - Mangalore
MANGALORE, Feb 10: The Bajpe airport of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is likely to handle three more daily flight operations from Mumbai, Bangalore and Sharjah from this summer. With the introduction of the new schedules, the number of daily flight schedules at the airport will go up to nine.
Sources in the AAI told 'The Hindu' that Bangalore-based Air Deccan has come forward to start a Mangalore-Mumbai daily service by this summer and is likely to use an Airbus 320. The airline is already operating a daily service between Mangalore and Bangalore.
Kingfisher Airlines owned by Vijay Mallya of the UB Group will start a daily service between Mangalore and Bangalore by this April. Mallya, Chairman and Managing Director of Kingfisher Airlines, has announced that the airlines will get a new ATR aircraft this March, and it will be used for Mangalore-Bangalore flights from April. Kingfisher recently introduced an Airbus 319 daily service between Mangalore and Mumbai.
First step
As a first step to commence a direct service from Mangalore to a destination outside the country, Air-India Express plans to operate a flight on the Thiruvananthapuram-Mangalore-Sharjah sector by May.
A seven-member team of Air India visited the Bajpe airport on February 4 for a preliminary study. But sources said the direct service will materialise only if Customs and immigration counters are ready at the airport by May. The plan is to launch the service by May 7. There are four flight schedules from Mangalore to Mumbai and two from Mangalore to Bangalore. Jet Airways operates two flights to Mumbai, and Kingfisher Airlines and Indian Airlines operate one each. Jet Airways and Air Deccan operate one flight each to Bangalore.
Sources said an airline company, which is to be set up in Bangalore by former Indian Airlines officials, has written to the AAI that it will park an aircraft at Bajpe from this April. But this is not likely to materialise by then as the company is facing financial problems.
The company had announced that it would launch its first aircraft by August 15, 2005, but put off the plan.
Sources attributed the delay to a few investors pulling out of the company.
The first investors in the company were nine businessmen from Mangalore. But they reportedly withdrew Rs. 12 crores from the venture, and this affected the company's plan to raise Rs. 30 crores for launching services.
Parking fee
An airline that wants to park an aircraft at the airport has to pay a fee and route navigation facilitation charge to the AAI. The AAI has announced that an operator who wants to park an aircraft in an airport other than those in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore will get 50 per cent concession in parking fee.
No operator is parking an aircraft overnight at the Bajpe airport, which has four parking slots.