Puducherry to resume air services to Bengaluru, Hyderabad from October 2

PUDUCHERRY: Puducherry airport will resume air services to Bengaluru and Hyderabad from October 2. The services were suspended from June 13 this year to take up maintenance work at the airport. Flight services were launched in 1990 in Puducherry.

Vayudoot, an erstwhile joint-venture between Indian Airlines and Air India, extended air services connecting Chennai and Puducherry from 1990 to 1992. But the services were stopped in 1992 due to a shortage of aircrafts. The government acquired 19.92 hectares of land for ₹18.67cr and handed it over to AAI for expansion.

The government resumed flight services in 2013 by collaborating with SpiceJet Ltd connecting the Union territory with Bengaluru and with other metro cities via Bengaluru in January 2013. However, within a year, SpiceJet suspended its services after the airline was forced to fly at two-thirds load as runway was too short for their aircraft.