Coimbatore: Madurai - Coimbatore flight service has been stopped due to low passenger count.
Coimbatore: Madurai - Coimbatore flight service has been stopped due to low passenger count.
Alliance Air, a wholly owned subsidiary of Air India Limited during the first week of October made an announcement about commencing flight operations from Bengaluru to Madurai to Coimbatore. From Coimbatore, the flight was scheduled to Bengaluru.
As announced the flight service commenced on 13th October and a 70 seater ATR 72 type aircraft was used for the service. As per the schedule the Flight 9I 573 departed from Bengaluru at 6:30 am and arrived in Madurai at 7:50 am. Departing from Madurai at 8: 20 am and the flight arrived in Coimbatore at 9:10 am. Flight 9I 573 then departed from Coimbatore at 9:35 am and reached Bengaluru at 10:35 am.
On the first day only 8 passengers travelled between Madurai and Coimbatore, but there was hope that the response would increase after a few days. Still the response continued to be very poor, which ultimately made the airlines management to stop the service. Air India officials said, "The response for the newly introduced connection flight was very poor. Only 8, 4, 3, and 2 passengers travelled each time. Hence the service has been stopped."
Kongu Global Forum (KGF) Director, D. Nanda Kumar said,"First of all we thank 'Alliance Air' for boldly taking an initiative to start a new service between Madurai and Coimbatore. In recent days, the number of 'Covid-19' infections has slowly started to come down. This is a good sign and all the airports have started to witness more passenger movement in the domestic sector."
He added that, "Fear about the pandemic still prevails among the people and it will take some time. Hence after the passenger movement returns to normalcy, we request Alliance Air to start this connection flight service between Madurai and Coimbatore again. Introducing new flight services to small cities will help the passengers in a big way. We hope the situation soon turns back to normal at Coimbatore."