Cong leader Aujla blames Centre for airport’s losses

Manmeet Singh Gill

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 28

A day after Rajya Sabha member Shwait Malik and Sri Gur Ram Das Jee International Airport director Venkateshwar Rao claimed that losses of the airport are likely to touch Rs 49 crore at the end of this fiscal, Congress candidate from Amritsar for the Lok Sabha bypoll Gurjit Singh Aujla accused the Union Government of punishing the city for the defeat of BJP leader Arun Jaitley in the 2014 LS elections.

Malik is also a member of the Aviation Consultative Committee.

Aujla while addressing a press conference here today alleged that the Centre was under pressure of a lobby, which does not wants the Amritsar airport to grow.

He said the Amritsar airport had witnessed a footfall of 15,01,184 passengers in 2016, of which 5,04,957 were international passengers.

He claimed that there were no reasons for the airport to face any losses if it had more international flights. Rather, it could have resulted in an increase of footfall.

Aujla said city residents and NRIs from various countries had been demanding for long that more international flights should be started from the city.

He said the apathy of the Centre towards the Amritsar airport could be understood from the fact that only two of the four proposed aerobridges were operational.

Aujla said the international airport had only two conveyor belts which were not as per the international standards.

He said if the rescheduled flights of Air India to London, Birmingham and Toronto from Amritsar were restored, the airport could easily start making profits.

He said even the Abu Dhabi-Amritsar flight announced by Jet-Etihad airways in 2013 had not been started.

He said the director of the airport had earlier announced that the Amritsar-Toronto flight would be restored by February 15, 2017, but it had not started yet.

The Congress leader said even no ground work to materialise the proposed flight from Amritsar to Bangkok had been done which was a clear direction that the flight would not resume on the proposed date in the next month.

Aujla said the aviation ministry could also invite Lufthansa to begin the Amritsar-Frankfurt flight which could provide transit to 15 cities in the US and five cities in Canada. He blamed the Centre and its biased attitude towards the Amritsar airport for the latter’s losses.