Direct flights of Air India Express From Kuwait to Mangalore by June?

06 February 2007

There is a ray of hope for the NRI's of Karnataka who are making relentless efforts through United Associations of Karnataka to have a direct flight to Mangalore and Bangalore from Kuwait. The commencement of direct flights from Dubai and soon to start flights from Abudhabi/Musact has given a clear indication that start of Air India express flights from Kuwait to Mangalore is not far away.
UAKK office bearers in their continuous efforts to keep the pressure on, met Hon. Minister of State for External Affairs Sri E. Ahmed during his recent visit to Kuwait and submitted a memorandum to expedite the commencement of direct flights by Air India Express to Mangalore and Bangalore. UAKK members also explained the efforts made by the community and appeals submitted to all officials concerned including to Aviation Minister Sri. Praful Patel and to Prime Ministers office.
Sri. E Ahmed informed the members that he is well aware of this issue and assured that as soon as Air India Express resolves the crunch of Aircrafts, flights will soon start from Kuwait. He requested the community leaders to be patient as it is just a matter of time. He was surprised to hear that there is still no direct flight from Kuwait to Bangalore.
The memorandum was also copied to Sri Tulsidas, Chairman of Air India, Sri P.P. Singh CEO of Air India and Rishikanth Singh, Country Manager for Kuwait and Cyprus Air India, Kuwait.
On receiving the copy of the memorandum, Sri. Rishikanth Sigh, Air India Country Manager for Cyprus and Kuwait, explained his own efforts in impressing upon the Aviation and Air India officials to start direct flights to Mangalore and showed copies of the related correspondence to the visiting office bearers of UAKK. He said that the commercial viability of Kuwait/Mangalore/Bangalore sector is well known to Air India for some time but somehow the flights could not materialize due to priorities given to other sectors. He did not elaborate further. He confidently said as soon as Aircrafts are available Kuwait Mangalore flight will start immediately. On pressurizing for a probable time frame he said that flights most likely tol start from May / June 2007.
UAKK also got assurances from officials of Indian Airlines that there is every possibility of start of flights to Mangalore Via Sharjah. in the month of September/October period. It need to be noted that the local low budget Airline Jazeera Airlines had shown its willingness to start flights to Mangalore but is waiting for clearance from Indian Aviation Ministry.
The NRI's from Kuwait are hoping that their dreams of flying directly to Mangalore will come true before the start of the summer holidays and the nightmare of flying Via Bombay be averted once for all.
(mangalorean.com)