TBM Staff - Mumbai As international travel picks up and demands for flights see an upward tick, Guwahati’s Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport (LGBIA) resumed services on foreign routes from Saturday. International flights were suspended due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first flight that took off from the airport was a Druk Air plane that left for Singapore at 9.10 am. The airport authority officials said that the same airline will also operate a flight from the city to Bhutan on Sundays.
After around four and half hours in the air, the flight that left Guwahati at 9.10 AM (IST) landed at Singapore’s Changi airport at 16:10 Singapore local time. The service resumed on September 3, and it will operate once a week. The outbound flights depart on Saturday and returning ones on Sundays.
The return flight leaves Singapore on Sundays at 12:30 PM (IST) and reaches Guwahati International airport at 14:30 (IST). It will then leave for Paro Airport at 15:20 and land at 16:30. The airport in Paro, approves only a few pilots to make a landing. Bhutan’s national airline Druk Air is the only international carrier that operates flights to Guwahati.
With the opening of DrukAir services, Bhutan has started allowing international tourists to travel to the country. Druk Air has started its operations and will provide convenient travel options for passengers from northeast India to Bhutan and Singapore. Druk Air also offers flights to Delhi with Airbus A319.
In 2019, a direct flight from the city of Guwahati to Dhaka was introduced under the Union Civil Aviation Ministry’s UDAAN scheme. However, this service was discontinued due to the low traffic.
The Aviation ministry is working on launching direct flights from the city to various international destinations, including Yangon (Myanmar), Kathmandu (Nepal), Hanoi )Vietnam), and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). For now, all eyes are on seeing how the market expands. (Source FE)
