Alliance Air withdraws from NE
>From Kalyan Barooah Assam Tribune
NEW DELHI, Feb 13 Its finally official. The Alliance Air is on its way out
of the northeastern region, with the Centre selecting Zav Airways to operate
the dedicated regional air service. This was formally announced by the Civil
Aviation Minister, Praful Patel, at a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative
Committee here this afternoon.
Four airlines have been given NOC in the Scheduled Air Transport (Regional)
Services category. M/s. Zav Airways has been given the NOC for North-east and
Eastern Region, he added, ending months of uncertainty.
As reported earlier, the first bidding process fell through because the
Ministry did not receive any response from the airline operators for the
North-east.
The response to the first round of tendering process was poor. We had to float
fresh tenders inviting bids, which are going to be opened this month, Minister
for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), Mani Shankar Aiyar had told
this newspaper, last month.
The Kolkata-based Zav Airways is funded by NRIs. The regional airline proposes
to buy two Bombardier Inc.-made CRJ-900s and two ATR 72-500 planes, besides six
Bell-made helicopters for heli-taxi services at an estimated investment of
Rs450 crore in the first phase of operations with Kolkata as its base,
according to reports.
The airline plans to connect 17 sectors in the eastern and the northeastern
region, including Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Aizawl, Dimapur, Bagdogra, Bhubaneswar,
Patna, , Ranchi, with a low-fare service.
Currently there are 11 operational airports, while plans are on to
operationalise at least 12 new airports in the North-east by the end of 2008
and another 25 airports over the 11th five year plan period. The Minister DoNER
has said that the NER would boast of as many as 400 flights every month by the
end of 2009.
The heavily subsidised air operations in the North-east have been dogged by
complaints of poor service by the Alliance Air. The North Eastern Council (NEC)
pays Rs 35 crore annually for the dedicated air service in the region.
Though the NEC had plans to start the new operation from January, its schedule
had to be re-worked after its first bids received poor response. The new
dedicated regional airlines are expected to start operations later this year.
The new set of terms and conditions also stipulated that one aircraft would be
based at Guwahati. However, there was no word on the long-pending demand to
make Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi Airport, the regions only international
airport into hub of regional air service.
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