Sri Guru Ram Das Ji International Airport in Amritsar is North India's premier airport with a promising future. The holy city is the gateway to the country on the world tourist map. This holy city is the spiritual and cultural center of the Sikh religion and a preferred destination for the Punjabi diaspora and foreign tourists who come here to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple. It hosts more than 35 million pilgrims annually. More than 6 million Punjabis, mainly from the Majha and Doaba region of Punjab are settled in North America, Europe, Australia, South East Asia and Middle East countries. It is also the second largest and main airport in North India after Delhi airport with a runway of 12001 feet that can land any big aircraft. Even with all these factors, it has been listed as one of the top loss making airport for 2015 in the country by Airport Authority of India (AAI). With such a big Punjabi diaspora and as one of the top destinations on world tourist map, one would expect the airport to have attracted many airlines as its destination. In terms of passenger traffic, it is now ranked 27th in the country with an annual estimate of 1 million international and domestic passengers. Majority of the Airports in India are incurring losses including the one at Amritsar.
Amritsar airport has tremendous revenue potential as the holy city is a tourist hub. Due to the bad intention of successive governments in India and the lobby in Delhi to extend profit to the Delhi airport, it continues to suffer heavy losses and many international airlines who are interested in flying to the holy city are not getting permission from the Ministry of Civil Aviation. The Union government with an investment of more than Rs.150 crore has set up state of the art infrastructure and established the airport building in consonance with the contemporary architecture. Airport has well established modern "Cargo Terminal" with 80 tons capacity cold rooms, advanced X-ray machine along and a proposal to set-up permanent cargo terminal with latest advanced facilities. It is getting upgraded to world's latest CAT-3B ILS system for safe landing of flights in any season especially during the dense fog in winter.
Amritsar Airport is currently served by Air India, Jet Airways, Spice Jet, Qatar Airways, Malindo Air, Uzbekistan Airways & Turkmenistan Airways, offering direct and connecting domestic and international flights. In the past, several airlines discontinued international flights from the airport due to the reasons best known to them. But now many new airlines, especially low cost airlines are realizing the potential of Amritsar airport. These losses for the Airport would diminish as two international airlines launched new international flights in Nov 2015. Two more international airlines might soon start operations from the airport. Let us take a look at how 2016 can see a big change in the connectivity as many foreign airlines are listing it as one of the top destination airport in India.
During a recent visit to Amritsar, I, along with other office bearers of Amritsar Vikas Manch (an NGO) had an opportunity to meet with the recently appointed Amritsar Airport Director, Venkatesh Rao. Due to his sincere efforts, Malaysia's Malindo Air started direct flight between Kuala Lumpur and Amritsar, Spicejet introduced Dubai-Amritsar-Dubai and Singapore's Scoot Airline has announced to start Singapore-Amritsar flight from May 2016. He mentioned that he was surprised that even though as one of the top tourist destinations in North India (domestic and international), Airport has not been able to expand among airlines in all these years. In a seminar held by the Manch on the "Emergence of Sri Guru Ram Das Ji International Airport as potential booster for State economy", he also provided details on the expansion and future master plan of the airport, and future airlines to start that are going to start operating flights from Amritsar.
Currently, Qatar airways is the biggest international airline operating 7 weekly direct flights between Doha-Amritsar and connects to more than 140 destinations in the world. It provides connections to majority of the destinations with less than 2 to 4 hours layover in Doha. With its recent launch of flights to Los Angeles in the US west coast, Sydney in Australia and Birmingham in England, it has provided the most extensive connectivity to Amritsar. With its vast network, passengers are now facing problem for not been able to get seats on Doha-Amritsar sector as the number of Punjabis arriving in Doha from various destinations far exceeds the availability of 180 economy seats on Doha-Amritsar route. Qatar can easily fill passengers with 2 flights a day and it has already asked Indian Aviation authorities for permission to fly a bigger plane with capacity of more than 300 seats. But the government is reluctant to increase seating capacity to them, when its own Indian-based airlines fail to fill the void.
Qatar Airways competitors from UAE, either Etihad or Emirates can easily get enough passengers by starting direct flights from their hub in Abu Dhabi or Dubai. In 2013, Etihad after buying 20% stake in Indian carrier Jet Airways, had listed Amritsar as one of the six future destinations, from where its partner Jet will start direct flights to Abu Dhabi by end of 2014. By end of 2014, Jet started flying from other 5 Indian airports but so far has left Amritsar. Jet has not yet given any reason for it but recently there is a big demand to start direct flights between Amritsar-Abu Dhabi. Etihad like its competitor Qatar also flies to more than 140 destinations from Abu Dhabi. Amritsar-Abu Dhabi flight will also provide connection to Etihad's flight from Abu Dhabi to Toronto and San Francisco. It directly flies from Abu Dhabi to 10 biggest US airports and recently opened US immigration facility at the Abu Dhabi airport. Punjabi Diaspora all over the world should request Jet to start flights from Amritsar to Abu Dhabi.
Another big Airline and a competitor of Qatar, Turkish Airlines have also listed Amritsar as one of the top six destinations for its future expansion in India. Turkish Airline flies to more than 150 destinations including the cities with large number of Punjabis. They are now in advance stage of talks with Government of India and hope to get the rights soon to fly to Amritsar.
In November 2015, Malaysia based low cost airline, Malindo Air started Kuala Lumpur-Amritsar flight with onward connectivity to many South East Asian destinations including Perth in Australia, Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Flyscoot, a long haul and low cost partner of Singapore Airlines group has now announced Singapore-Amritsar flight from May 2016. It will carry large percentage of its traffic onward to Australia, New Zealand, San Francisco, LA and other destinations in South East Asia using its own network and its partner Singapore Airlines. It operates all wide bodied Boeing 787 Dreamliner planes with about 350-375 economy class seats on all its routes and offers fares 15 to 50% cheaper that other big international airlines. Last month, Malindo Air competitor Air Asia X, another low cost airline from Malaysia, has now listed Amritsar as its next destination and are waiting for government permission. Recent announcements by these airlines clearly shows that they all want to compete for the large number of Punjabi passengers from this region flying to Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
Amritsar Airport has proved as the favorite and most profitable destination for Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Since 2004, both airlines have been flying to their capital city of Tashkent and Dushanbe and connecting passengers to London, Birmingham and other European destinations. These airlines also carry Cargo from Amritsar and successfully completed more than 10 years of its operations from Amritsar. These flights became successful due to active cooperation of the Punjabi diaspora in Great Britain.
Jet is also operating 3 daily code share flights on Delhi-Amritsar route with Etihad, Alitalia, Air France, KLM, US and European carriers. They are easily able to fill these flights with a 200 seater plane. Air India also provides connections via Delhi to Amritsar for Turkish Airline, Air Canada, United and Lufthansa passengers. Unfortunately, majority of the flights from these carriers reach Delhi between 7 to 12pm in the evening. Since there are no evening flights after 7pm by Jet or AI, Amritsar bound passengers has to wait for 10 to 13 hours at the airport to connect with the morning flight.
Amritsar's connectivity with the Punjabi diaspora shall not be adequate unless it is connected to Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton in Canada. Serious efforts should be pursued with Air India and other big airlines for getting flights started between Amritsar and Vancouver. If Vancouver is connected with Amritsar, it will initially serve as a hub for the Punjabi diaspore living in Calgary, Edmonton and surrounding cities.
With airlines now realizing the growth potential of Amritsar Airport and recent launch of new international flights, the losses for Airport can possibly come down by the end of this year. In 2015, every big or small airline that wishes to expand in India has listed Amritsar as one of its future destination. With recent events in Haryana, passengers from Punjab are now demanding more direct international connectivity from Amritsar. Punjabis constitutes about 45% out of more than 3 crore passenger traffic in Delhi. Punjabi and Sikh diaspora all over the world should make efforts to request airlines to fly to Amritsar. They all should put pressure on the Indian government and Ministry of Civil Aviation, to grant permission to airlines who want to fly directly to Amritsar. While travelling on various airlines, they should fill out the airline feedback forms and request them to start direct flights to Amritsar. With more direct flights, Cargo especially vegetables, flowers and fruits will be exported from Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. Amritsar airport will also earn huge profits and also help the export business in the region.
Sameep Singh Gumtala,
Dayton, OHIO, USA
