In what’s fast becoming a recurring pattern, yet another flight route has disappeared from the departure boards at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport. Star Air’s recently launched service to Kolhapur, barely two months old, has now been suspended. This unexplained action is raising fresh concerns about the consistency of operations from Nagpur.
Nagpur To Kolhapur Flight Suspended
According to Nagpur Today, Flight S5-135 had taken off in May, connecting Nagpur to Kolhapur on Mondays, Fridays, and Sundays at 2:35 PM. The route was especially significant for pilgrims heading to the Mahalaxmi Temple and for travellers who had, until then, relied on long-distance trains or convoluted bus journeys. The convenience was short-lived. According to the current update, the flight service is on hold until the end of August. But with no official confirmation on its resumption, the route remains suspended indefinitely.
This isn’t an isolated case; in fact, it’s the fourth such vanishing act in recent months. Routes to Nashik, Aurangabad, and Lucknow were pulled earlier this year, allegedly to accommodate a “summer schedule.” It might have passed as a seasonal reshuffle in May, but now, in August, with the monsoon in full swing and no reinstatements in sight, passengers are left without any resolve.
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For a city frequently spotlighted in policy circles as a future logistics and aviation hub, complete with ambitions of being the country’s cargo capital, its domestic connectivity is on a worrying downward spiral. Regular passengers are being pushed into indirect routes via Mumbai or Pune, which defeats the very purpose of regional flights.
Neither Star Air nor the airport authorities have issued a detailed statement explaining the rationale behind the suspension as of now. And while the government continues to tout multimodal transport as the future, passengers are left hopeless.
Kolhapur may not be India’s busiest sector, but it’s far from being insignificant. Apart from being a key religious hub, it has growing economic importance in southern Maharashtra. Cutting off a direct link, especially one so recently introduced, sends a clear signal about the fragility of regional air connectivity, as stated by Nagpur Today.
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So, where does this leave things? With no confirmation on the route’s return, the answers aren’t arriving anytime soon. But for those who relied on that Monday-Friday-Sunday 2:35 PM flight, the inconvenience is already here. And so is the question: how long before another route goes quiet?
Cover Image Courtesy: KrishArush/Wikipedia
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