New flights for Indore, Raipur & Nagpur soon

Bhopal: At a time when air carriers are cutting down on routes and flights as a pandemic side-effect, a new airline—Flybig—is gearing up to take off from Raja Bhoj airport. The destinations may include— Indore, Raipur and Nagpur.

The airline authorities signed a contract with the Bhopal airport. The ticket counter has been set up.

However, the operations are expected to start by September-end.

After lockdown was imposed, the air connectivity reduced significantly. The number of flights operating from Bhopal fell down to 14 from 44. And the destinations shrunk to mere four cities—Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, from 12 in pre-Covid times.

Director of Bhopal airport, Anil Vikram confirms that a contract has been signed between Flybig and the city airport. “They have opened their counter, but ticket sales have not started,” he said. He refused to divulge other information about the operations.

Sources said the airline has shown interest to start operation by the end of September. “Cities including Indore and Raipur will be connected in the first phase. It is then expected to take off to Nagpur as well,” said a senior official of the airport. Sources added that the airline will be launched in the near future as few documentation work and formalities are yet to be done.

Flyers said that it is good to see that new airlines are showing interest.

“Bhopal was doing good in air connectivity. The situation flipped after the lockdown. Amid all this, a new airline showing interest in Bhopal is praiseworthy. I hope that it will soon start the operations from Bhopal airport,” said Vikas Sharma, a frequent flyer.