Flight count at Kolkata airport to go up to 75 from Monday

KOLKATA: The flight count at Kolkata airport is set to shoot up from only 11 at present to 75 from Monday. The number of flights is exactly a third of the 225 domestic flights that operated from Kolkata prior to the lockdown.

"We are looking forward to Monday when Kolkata airport will have a semblance of normalcy.

Till now, we had been severely constrained by the low flight count. But the situation should improve from Monday with multiple flights by each of the six airlines in operation to all metros," an airport official said.

IndiGo will operate the highest number of flights with connections to Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bagdogra, Guwahati, Lucknow, Nagpur, Raipur, Patna, Agartala, Imphal, Varanasi and Port Blair. SpiceJet will have the second highest flight count followed by Air India , GoAir, Air Asia and Vistara. Together, the carriers will offer direct flights to 24 cities and towns.

The travel trade fraternity, while welcoming the increase in flight count, was wary of how viable so many flights would be once the initial urgent travel needs are over. On Saturday, 1,745 passengers arrived while only 1,219 passengers departed the city.

Meanwhile, a passenger who arrived by a SpiceJet flight from Mumbai was taken to the Covid hospital in New Town on Saturday after he recorded a high body temperature. His swabs have been sent for tests and he was kept in isolation. Another passenger, who had also been similarly isolated on Thursday, tested negative and was released from the centre.