Amritsar, April 5: The Amritsar Vikas Manch has requested Jet Airways to start direct flights from Sri Guru Ram Das Ji Airport, Amritsar, to Abu Dhabi, UAE’s commercial capital. In their reference letters to Jet Airways’ Amritsar Station manager Vivek Suri, vice-president, corporate communications, Manish Kalghatgi, Etihad Airways, USA manager Jon Spring, the manch’s regional representative from the US, Sameep Singh Gumtala, stated that there is a great potential for passengers from Amritsar to Abu Dhabi. “The introduction of this service will allow passengers to avail themselves of multiple travel options through Abu Dhabi to destinations in Europe, North America, Africa, South East Asia, Middle East and the Gulf on its partner Etihad Airways.
Currently, to travel on the Jet/Etihad connections, passengers have to travel to Delhi on Jet Airways, wait long hours and then do another stop at Abu Dhabi. With this direct flight, guests can enjoy the advantage of direct seamless connectivity from Amritsar to Abu Dhabi with one-stop connections to many other international destinations,” Gumtala writes.
The letter stated that after Jet Airways deal with Etihad in 2013, it was reported in the media that Jet Airways has plans to connect 23 India cities to Abu Dhabi to synergise operations with Etihad Airways. Jet and Etihad had also announced that eight Indian cities will come on the map by 2013 and in the second phase, Jet will fly to six more destinations directly to Abu Dhabi including Amritsar, Jaipur, Lucknow, Goa and Mangalore by the end of 2014.
Out of these six additional planned destinations to be covered by Jet Airways, all other cities except Amritsar were connected with Abu Dhabi in 2014 and early 2015. On 29 March 2016, Jet had started direct flight from Ahmedabad to Abu Dhabi but so far there has been no such announcement yet by the airline regarding Amritsar. Qatar Airways, a competitor of Jet/Etihad is doing tremendous business with its flight from Amritsar to Doha and connecting passengers to all of its more than 140 destinations around the world. The important advantage and a plus point is that this direct flight to Abu Dhabi will enable to earn two-fold business, one with the flights from Amritsar to Europe and second one on the North American sector.