Akal Air new Birmingham-Amritsar flight service soon

New airline Akal Air, a trading division of Air Sylhet, will launch Birmingham-Amritsar flights from April 4, 2009.Akal Air is planning to fly a 228-seater Boeing 757 200 for the service. It is expected to depart from Birmingham on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 18.30 from April 4, 2009.

Akal Air will run its Birmingham-Amritsar flights with a 1-hour stopover in Vienna, though passengers will not need to switch planes.

Daljit Singh Birring, MD of Akal Air, said that Birmingham was the perfect base for Akal Air.

He added, “Access to Amritsar is of huge importance to the large Punjabi and Sikh population of the Midlands taking the pilgrimage to the Golden Temple and visiting family and friends, as well as for business people trading with India’s emerging economy.”

Previously, Air India operated direct Birmingham-Amritsar flights but, in 2008, it curtailed the flights from six times a week to three times a week.

Business and civic officials in Birmingham have petitioned the Indian government to relax rules and allow other Indian private airlines to cover the air route from Birmingham to Amritsar.

Currently, only  Air India is allowed to operate direct flights on the Birmingham-Amritsar route.

But Air India has put its Birmingham-Amritsar sector on the backburner because of the increase in frequency of its Amritsar-London-Toronto flight,  from April 25, 2009.

Air India’s London operation isn’t as profitable as its Birmingham-India operation but it had to compromise on the Birmingham-India service to avoid losing valuable slots at Heathrow because of the way the London airport is run.

Avinash Arora, station manager (Amritsar), Air India, clarified that, currently, 100 tonnes of cargo are being handled per month and initially a Boeing 777 200 ER aircraft will be introduced on the route.

“This would be later upgraded to 300 ER. We expect that the introduction of the daily flight would boost the export from the region,” he said.