Jorhat, Jan. 8: The Jorhat Airport Advisory Committee, headed by MP Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, urged private airlines and government-owned Air India today to start flights to and from Jorhat for the district's better air connectivity in view of increasing business activity, presence of a large number of educational and research institutes and the area being a tourism hub with Kaziranga, Majuli and historical monuments in Sivasagar in its vicinity.
Each district, having an airport, has an airport advisory committee. It is headed by the local Lok Sabha MP, while the deputy commissioner of the district, Airport Authority of India officials, representatives of business and tourism community and social workers work as members of the committee to offer advice to the government and other stakeholders to maintain proper air service.
Jorhat deputy commissioner Solanki Vishal Vasant told The Telegraph that the committee, under the chairmanship of Tasa, had a meeting with officials of three airlines today. The committee requested the officials to start new flights operating to and from Jorhat and increase flights by the airlines operating currently.
Officials of Jet Airways, Indigo and Air India attended the meeting and the committee told the officials about the huge business potential the region had with Jorhat being gateway to Upper Assam, Nagaland and a part of Arunachal Pradesh.
Solanki said "unfortunately" flights to Jorhat had decreased in the past few years, creating a lot of difficulties for passengers coming here and moving out as they had to go to either Dibrugarh (about 130km) or Borjhar in Guwahati (about 350km) to catch flights.
He added that for five days a week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) Jet Airways ran flights between Calcutta and Jorhat (to and fro) and Jet Lite ran flights between Guwahati and Jorhat (to and fro) for two days a week (Thursday and Sunday).
The plane operating to and fro in the Jorhat-Calcutta route was an ATR aircraft used by the airlines with a capacity to carry only 60 passengers, the deputy commissioner said. "We requested the airlines to start operating to and from Jorhat, Calcutta, Delhi and other state capitals and also increase air connectivity with Guwahati," Solanki said.
The director of Jorhat airport (at Rowriah) under Airport Authority of India, Jameel Khaliq, gave a detailed presentation on the need to introduce more flights from Jorhat and explained the large business potential of the district.
"With only two airlines operating now, the fares too have been very high for lack of competition," Solanki said. Khaliq said with the presence of oil installations, ONGC having its Assam and Arakan Basin headquarters, defence establishments, tea gardens, the prospect of good business was high. The MP would pursue the matter with the civil aviation ministry to ask the airlines to operate on this route, he added.
Hotelier Jayanta Kumar Bezbaruah, whose hotel had been the handling the agent of Air India till December 2013 when the airlines stopped its operations here, said it was "strange" that the most of the country's airlines, including the Centre-owned Air India, was not operating flights here.
"I don't understand why airlines have not come forward to connect with Jorhat and even the existing two (airlines) have not increased its flights when there was a huge surge in demand over the years," Bezbaruah said.
