Summary
- Alliance Air will launch a brand new route between Amritsar and Kullu in North India, reducing travel time from several hours by road to only 55 minutes by flight.
- The airline will use its ATR 42 aircraft for this route, which was specifically acquired to serve difficult and restricted airports.
- Alliance Air is the one state-owned carrier in India and focuses on regional connectivity, with a lot of its routes falling under the federal government’s regional flying scheme UDAN.
India’s regional carrier Alliance Air is about to start out a brand new route in North India – Amritsar within the state of Punjab to Kullu within the state of Himachal Pradesh. With a fleet of smaller propeller aircraft, Alliance Air focuses on regional routes in India, particularly to underserved destinations under the Indian government’s regional flying scheme UDAN.
Amritsar to Kullu
Alliance Air will start an exclusive route between Amritsar and Kullu in North India from October 1st. Anyone traveling between the 2 destinations currently has to take the road, with the journey lasting around 10 hours. Alliance Air’s recent service will reduce the traveling time to only 55 minutes.
Photo: Gcmap.com
Kullu-Manali is a preferred tourist destination within the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh, which shares its border with Punjab. Aside from regular tourists, Alliance Air may also hope to draw those seeking to travel to Manikarak Sahib, a Sikh pilgrimage center in Himachal. Tribune India quotes one such person as saying,
ATR 42 will likely be deployed on the route
Alliance Air will use the smaller of its two ATR aircraft types – the ATR 42 – on this route. The airline acquired two ATR42s last 12 months, and Kullu was the primary destination to be served by it. Alliance Air specifically got the ATR 42 to fly to difficult airfields, comparable to Shimla and Kullu within the Himalayan region of North India. Such airports have certain restrictions, making them inaccessible to larger planes.
Positioned at high altitudes and exposed to extreme temperatures, these airports even have short runways. With the smaller ATR-42s, Alliance Air gets a great mixture of size and economics to make these routes viable.
Alliance Air has a good smaller aircraft – the Dornier Do228, which primarily operates in difficult airfields in Northeast India. Per ch-aviation, the carrier has a fleet of 21 aircraft, including one Dornier Do228, two ATR 42s, and 17 ATR 72s.
Only state-owned carrier in India
Once a subsidiary of Air India, Alliance Air was not a part of the deal when Air India was handed over to the Tata Group. Currently, it’s the only state-owned airline in India. It avoids the foremost trunk routes in India and focuses on regional connectivity across the country. Lots of its routes come under UDAN – a regional connectivity scheme by the Indian government.
Photo: BoeingMan777 / Shuttertsock
Earlier this 12 months, the Indian government announced that it should infuse greater than $35 million into the carrier to alleviate a few of its financial problems. The airline had previously run into trouble when several of its pilots went on a mass leave to protest salary-related issues.
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