The newly elected Member of Parliament for Belagavi, Jagadish Shettar is being called upon to address the issue of limited flight connections at Belagavi Airport, which has been a problem for the past three years. The recent discontinuation of two key routes by Star Air has further reduced the number of destinations served by the airport from 12 to 10.
Star Air has ceased operations on the Belagavi to Surat and Belagavi to Kishangarh (Ajmer) routes. These flights, which provided a convenient connection for residents of Belagavi, were ended following the conclusion of the UDAN scheme for these sectors.
Currently, Belagavi Airport offers direct flights to the following destinations:
- Ahmedabad (Star Air)
- Jodhpur (Star Air)
- Mumbai (Star Air)
- Tirupati (Star Air)
- Nagpur (Star Air)
- Jaipur (Star Air)
- Bengaluru (2 flights by Indigo)
- Hyderabad (Indigo)
- New Delhi (Indigo)
- Bhuj (via Ahmedabad, Star Air)
The construction of Terminal 2 (T2), a project valued at Rs. 322 crores, is progressing rapidly. This new terminal is expected to enhance passenger handling capabilities and improve services at the airport. However, frequent fliers continue to demand the introduction of direct flights to Chennai and Pune, as well as a connection to eastern India to facilitate easier travel.
At times, it feels like Belagavi Airport’s potential is being undermined by having only one large Airbus flight to New Delhi. To fully realize the airport’s capacity, there is a pressing need for more big Airbus planes to operate from here, ensuring better connectivity to major cities.
Adding to the concerns, new airlines that have recently started operations from MOPA (Goa) have overlooked Belagavi, leaving the city underserved. The cessation of UDAN routes by TruJet has also been a significant loss, further impacting Belagavi’s connectivity.
Enhancing flight services and bringing in more major airlines can help Belagavi Airport reach its full potential and better serve the travel needs of the region.
First thing first. Why do we need flights if there are no passengers to board? Belgavi should focus more on bringing more businesses, tradings, tourist attractions to its center and its neighboring area to generate more passengers to fly back and forth. Airlines are in the business to
make profits by flying their planes with passengers occupying their seats, not intend to fly back and forth while plane seats are being empty.
Does it make sense to any super intelligent People ? If it doesn’t make any sense then just ignore it and use stupidity to achieve nothing.
No airline is going to waste money running empty flights for the sake of reputation of a city, they run a business and to stay in that cut throat business they have to be prudent and smart, hence flights are stopped when not profitable