Air India's Hubballi-Bengaluru flights from today

Hubballi: Come Wednesday and Air-India will begin its service between Bengaluru and Hubballi. The tri-weekly service will operate on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, departing from Bengaluru at 3.45 pm and arriving in Hubballi at 5.05 pm. On the return flight, the aircraft will take off from Hubballi at 5.25 pm  and reach Bengaluru at 6.35 pm.

At present, Hubballi depends only on the service of Air Pegasus, which operates every evening. As many as eight private airlines, which had operated flights from the city to Bengaluru and Delhi for over two decades,  suspended their services eventually claiming the section was causing them a loss.

Industrialists, businessmen and IT entrepreneurs, who were greatly inconvenienced as a result, are now  looking forward to the 48-seater Air India flight improving connectivity between Bengaluru and the North Karnataka region.

North Karnataka has seen a boom in all sectors including real estate, manufacturing  and information technology due to flow of investment  after the global investment meets. But, absence of proper air connectivity has been proving a setback.

Though operation of  Air India  will help the people of the region, we have appealed to private airlines and the government to operate more flights from Hubballi," said Hubballi Chamber of Commerce and Industries president, Ramesh Patil.

Director of the recently upgraded Hubballi airport, Shivanand Benal, blamed the private airlines for failing to stick to flight schedules and the consequent drop in demand for their services. “The passengers were forced to shift to other modes of transport,” he said, adding that in future Hubballi could enjoy air connectivity to Mumbai as well.