Well this may not be good news for fliers from Belagavi as we just happened to see that the SpiceJet website isn’t allowing booking for its IXG-BLR flight from July 1, 2018 onwards.
One can make a booking upto June 30 but July 1 onwards the flight is not visible.
The SpiceJet schedules however mentions that SG 3468 Belagavi to Bengaluru ETD 3:55 PM ETA (BLR) 5:15 PM Mon/Wed/Thu/Fri/Sat/Sun is effective upto 27 Oct 18.
We then checked from Hubbali for a booking on July 1, 2018 and that was however available.
So does this mean that SpiceJet will discontinue its only flight to IXG and then this oldest airport in the country would be completely deserted
The SaveIXG campaign however is picking up its own pace with newly elected MLA’s under leadership of Abhay Patil have sent a letter to Prime minister Narednra Modi and also Civil aviation minister to include Belagavi under the UDAN scheme.
What sources have confirmed is the new UDAN scheme would be for those airports which have LESS than 2-3 flights, and hence it looks like new flights would only make after the inclusion under UDAN.
Rajesh Kumar Maurya recently meet with leading airline operators in south India at Chennai and IXG was pitched to Indigo, Air Aisa, Trujet and Air India.
One of the reason why Hubballi getting more preference over Belagavi is the location of the Airport. In Hubballi it is near to the Bus Stand and not far from railway station also, and for quick access it is connected to Pune-Bengaluru bypass, which make is more accessible. Even people from Belagavi can reach the Hubballi Airport in 2 hours compared to sambre airport which takes approx 1 hour.
Because of border dispute all this problems. Hope MLA Patil is successful.