Punjabi diaspora welcomes flight connecting Toronto with Amritsar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 6

The Qatar Airways rolling out a new flight connecting Toronto and Amritsar was on Monday welcomed with open arms by the punjabi diaspora. The airlines had commenced its operation on July 4.

Running thrice a week to Toronto from the hub of the Qatar Airways at the Hamad International Airport in Doha, it will have a stopover at the Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport. The direct flight will provide seamless one-stop connectivity between Amritsar-Toronto via Doha.

The airline has already been operating daily direct flights between Doha and Amritsar providing one-stop short transit connections via Doha to about nine North American destinations including four weekly flights to Montreal, Canada as well.

Anantdeep Singh Dhillon, FlyAmritsar North America convenor, informed that amid the lockdown and suspension of international flights by India, there is some good news for the punjabi diaspora in Canada. He said: “A large concentration of punjabis in and around Toronto and Vancouver in Canada were forced to travel through Delhi because of the non-availability of direct flights to these cities from Amritsar. With the introduction of this new route by Qatar Airways, Amritsar will now have seven weekly flights to Canada via Doha.”

The timings of this newly introduced flight between Doha-Toronto also enables short transit time of about three hours and 45 minutes through Doha, he pointed out.

Sameep Singh Gumtala, a resident of the USA and the global convener of FlyAmritsar initiative, said, “Qatar Airways recently worked closely with the government of Canada to repatriate around 8,000 Canadian citizens from Amritsar Airport alone during the recent crisis. The airline operated about 20 chartered evacuation flights from Amritsar to Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.”