Pressure for direct flights to Heathrow, despite AI launching Stansted route

NEW DELHI: Lobbyists for direct nonstop flights between

London

and

Amritsar

have hailed the new thrice weekly flights between Stansted and the holy city launched to coincide with the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev but are still keen on direct flights between Amritsar and Heathrow.


British Sikh MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, who lobbied for the re-introduction of London-Amritsar route, told TOI, “The flights operating between London Stansted and Amritsar is welcome news. I’m grateful to Air India and the Indian government for having taken this decision. It’s been a long-standing issue for the

Punjabi diaspora

. But a direct Heathrow-Amritsar route would be best, since hundreds of thousands of Punjabi NRIs travelling from North America via London would be able to connect directly, not to mention the huge potential of religious and cultural tourism arising from the community surrounding Heathrow.”

His views were echoed by Sameep Singh Gumtala, Global Convener of FlyAmritsar Initiative and overseas secretary of NGO Amritsar Vikas Manch, the civil society non-governmental organisation working for the development of Amritsar and Charan Kanwal Singh Sekhon, chairman of the charity SEVA Trust UK. Both have campaigned for the London-Amritsar route for two years.

Gumtala travelled from the USA to Amritsar specially to fly on the inaugural flight from Amritsar to Stansted, which had 160 passengers, while Sekhon took the first flight from Stansted to Amritsar on October 31. “We would have got more passengers had the flight gone from Heathrow,” Gumtala said.

Heathrow is 23 kilometre from central London, whereas Stansted is at a distance of 64 kilometre. “Most Punjabis, especially the rich ones, live around Southall, which is much closer to Heathrow and so more of them would have gone business class from Heathrow. They have to drive one and half hour to Stansted. Besides the huge diaspora in Canada, USA and Europe would use it for onward flights, as Air India codeshares with many of its

Star Alliance

airline partners including Air Canada, United, and Lufthansa, on flights to Toronto, Vancouver and other destinations. Heathrow is the world’s biggest aviation hub and so we want to keep the pressure for Heathrow flights on,” he said.

FlyAmritsar Convener in North America Anantdeep Singh Dhillon said Air India could operate its Delhi-Toronto and Delhi-Vancouver flights via Amritsar similar to its Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham flight.

A spokesperson for Air India said, “Our service on the Amritsar-Birmingham-Amritsar sector has always been very popular. And our recent operations launched from Amritsar to Stansted has also been receiving encouraging response both for outbound and inbound service. We would not like to make any comment on our operational issues regarding slots.”