Increased flights to and from Patna's Jayaprakash Narayan International Airport have left fliers spoilt for choice.

This time, low-cost carrier SpiceJet has announced direct flights connecting Patna with six cities - Calcutta, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Surat and Mumbai - starting July 1.

The airport authorities have released the flight schedule for these cities while other formalities are on to begin the new services.

While flights for Calcutta, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Surat will be on daily basis, the one for Bangalore will operate six days a week except Tuesday.

A statement released by SpiceJet reads: "With 'regional connectivity' as the macro theme, the airline has been rendering constant focus on the agenda while undertaking network expansions. The new flights are a part of SpiceJet's enhanced summer schedule and will further augment its connectivity in the domestic sector. The airlines extensive schedule for Patna would offer great synergies for eastern India while connecting it to the other key cities across the country."

Flight SG-876 will depart Patna at 8.45am and touch down at Calcutta's Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at 9.45am.

On its return journey, flight SG-877 will take off from Calcutta at 5.55pm and land in Patna at 7.05pm. Similarly, flight SG-877 will leave Patna at 7.50pm and cover the distance to Mumbai in 2 hours and 30 minutes.

On its return journey, SG-876 will take off from Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport at 5.45am and reach Patna at 8.15am.

SpiceJet also plans to introduce two direct flights to New Delhi on a daily basis shortly.

Patna airport director Rajendra Singh Lahouria said: "The process to open the ticketing for the new scheduled flights has been started. It would be completed within two weeks. Bookings for tickets will open once all formalities are done."

The new flights would take the total number of flights operating out of Patna airport at 32. The number was a meagre 10 in 2010.

Over the past two years, almost all major airlines have included Patna on their list of destinations because of significant growth in the flow of passengers.

Patna airport had registered a 32.4 per cent growth in the flow of passengers in 2015-16 compared to 14.5 per cent in the previous fiscal (2014-15), all apparently attributed to growth in number of fliers and low airfares.