UDAN dreams sours: Air Deccan given notice, No flights from Shillong?

TNT News | November 16, 2018

The buzz which was generated last year with Prime Ministers Narendra Modi's Dream UDAN project where a common person could fly anywhere within the region for a mere Rs 2500 seems to have turned sour.

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Reports are coming in that a letter of termination has been sent by UDAN's nodal agency, Airports Authority of India (AAI), to the civil aviation ministry and the ministry is likely to approve the letter till the filing of this report .

In the first round of UDAN, the government had awarded four sectors to Deccan Charters Pvt Ltd or Air Deccan with Shillong, Agartala and Dimapur being a sector of travel.

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Air Deccan's lack of enthusiasm in the Northeast Region has seriously hurt the image of the Prime Minister and with SpiceJet operating in Pakyong, Sikkim it has hurt tourism potential in Shillong.

"This also seems to be the reason why SpiceJet withdrew their services to Agartala because now Sikkim is the key point", said an official .

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Shillong Airport which is older than the bases in Dimapur (now connected by Indigo), Aizawl and Pakyong (Sikkim ) has been overtaken due to lack of urgency by the centre who are happy to see that only Guwahati airport flourishes.

It is estimated that about 15% of the passengers who land in Guwahati from rest of the country are travelling to Meghalaya. A flight to Shillong would also improve the revenue of Meghalaya and hurt Assam's interest said another person indicating a conspiracy against Meghalaya .