Flight services from Pondicherry to be resumed from August 15

Puducherry: After much delay, flight services from Puducherry are to be resumed from August 15.

SpiceJet would be providing connectivity to Hyderabad from August 15 under Centre's prestigious Udan scheme. "The private airline will fly maiden flight between Puducherry and Hyderabad on daily basis with tickets as cheap as Rs 2,500," chief secretary Manoj Parida told reporters here.

"The joint inspection team comprising officials from Director General of Civil Aviation, Airports Authority of India and Spice Jet had already inspected the airport on June 23 for starting the operations. The flight could not be operated from July 1 as announced earlier as Lt Governor Kiran Bedi rejected the proposal of providing a viability gap grant (VGG) to the operation citing wanting in observance of financial rules and CVC regulations," he added.

To enable sustainable flight operations, the Puducherry government has offered free water, electricity and security service and also reduced VAT on Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF), said Mr Parida.

An memorandum of  understanding (MoU) was signed with the civil aviation ministry on September 30 last year under the regional connectivity scheme.

SpiceJet was the first operator to  launch services from here in 2013 with direct flights connecting Puducherry and Bengaluru, but later stopped the service from January 30, 2014. Though Alliance Air started operating flights to Bengaluru six days a week since April 14, 2015, it stopped them in October the same year.