Around 700 passengers were affected in Delhi due to the cancellation of flights by Lufthansa and its code-share airlines
On September 2 Lufthansa pilots went on lightning strike for a day forcing the carrier to cancel around 800 flights from its hubs in the German cities of Frankfurt and Munich, affecting an estimated 130, 000 passengers globally. Around 700 passengers were affected in Delhi due to the cancellation of flights by Lufthansa and its code-share airlines.
Sameep Singh Gumtala, the Global Convener of the FlyAmritsar Initiative (FAI), Secretary Overseas Affairs of the Amritsar Vikas Manch (NGO) and a NRI based in USA, speaking about the difficulties faced by Indians due to the cancellation of flights said that most of the passengers who were seen in pictures and videos aired on various TV channels and social media were Punjabis. A majority of them were Punjabi students traveling to Canada for the new school year. The other people seen sloganeering outside the airport were friends and relatives of these travelers.
Gumtala said, “For the past several years, our advocacy campaign has been asserting that over 40-50 per cent of the international passengers travelling from Delhi airport are from Punjab. Once again, this situation proved our hunch to be true, about passengers traveling from Delhi to Canada the percentage at this time was as high as 70 to 80 per cent. Not only this, many of the passengers on these canceled flights reached Delhi by connecting flights originating from Amritsar Airport.”
The FAI appealed to the Chief Minister of Punjab and Canadian Parliamentarians, to take up the matter of direct flights through their official channels directly with Air India and write to them drumming support for the cause
He mentioned that airline tickets for the months of August and September were difficult to acquire as thousands of students from Punjab travel to Canada for the start of their classes. They were spending anywhere between INR 2 to 3 lakh for one-way tickets. The astronomical price of about Rs. 3 lacs for one-way economy class tickets on a direct flight by Air India or Air Canada has overtaken the fares of return Business Class ticket for Delhi-Canada sector that were available before the start of the pandemic.
In 2020 during the lockdown due to the pandemic, thousands of Canadians were stranded in Punjab, and they had to spend anywhere between 3500 to 5000 dollars to buy one-way tickets to return home. Even after the resumption of flights, the demand for tickets to Canada has exceeded availability of seats. There is such a rush for the tickets that Scoot airline operating Amritsar-Singapore flights, connecting passengers to Canada through its partner Singapore Airlines on Singapore-Vancouver sector, got their tickets fully sold in early July for flights in the month of August and September.
Gumtala said that despite the large number of passengers from Punjab and most of them purchasing expensive tickets, neither Air India nor Air Canada were interested in starting direct flights from Amritsar to Toronto or Vancouver. He said that the Punjab government was also not making worthwhile efforts to reach out to any airline with a good business plan for starting flights from Amritsar.
During a recent meeting with Air Canada officials held in May 2022, Gumtala and others had presented detailed data about passenger numbers to/from Punjab and had pointed out that passengers preferred direct flights and were paying higher fares. “We had requested the airline to seriously look at the option for starting seasonal flights for Amritsar during the peak winter season between October and early April, as they had earlier done the same when they had launched flights to Delhi and Mumbai. Sadly, even though vast majority of passenger traffic in North India originates from Punjab and people are paying high fares, the demand for direct flights from Amritsar hasn’t been fulfilled so far, neither by Air India nor by Air Canada,” he said.
Also, the Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation has not allowed any changes in bilateral air services agreements between Indian and other countries; hence, airlines of UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Italy, Germany, Turkey, and other countries were unable to start flights to Amritsar. He also mentioned that UAE authorities had requested India recently to add Amritsar along with 7 other airports in the bilateral air services agreement so that Emirates could start flights to Amritsar, but the Indian Government had remained non-committal. Due to this, one-stop connectivity via Dubai was not possible and Punjabis were forced to fly mostly from or via Delhi.
The FAI appealed to the Chief Minister of Punjab and Canadian Parliamentarians, to take up the matter of direct flights through their official channels directly with Air India and write to them drumming support for the cause, Gumtala added.
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