Mamata urges Centre to continue with Kolkata-London direct flights

Kolkata: With a huge demand for flights to European countries from Kolkata, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged the Centre to continue with the direct Kolkata-London flight that resumed last month after remaining suspended for many years.

"The direct flight from Kolkata to London had stopped before we came to power in 2011. It resumed just a few weeks ago and now the facility is available twice a week," Banerjee said adding that she would request the Government of India not to withdraw the same as there is a huge demand for flights to European countries from this part of India.

Besides urging the Centre to permanently continue with the Kolkata-London direct flight, she also made a request to increase its frequency.

In the same breath she has assured all necessary support from the state government to ensure continuation of the flight service. "We would conduct rapid antigen tests and RT-PCR tests of the passengers as soon as they land in Kolkata. Steps would be taken as per the set protocol if one is found Covid positive and one may leave for their destination if tested negative," Banerjee said after stating about the problems that are cropping up due to Covid tests before boarding flights while returning to Kolkata.

The first direct flight from London to Kolkata under the 'Vande Bharat Mission' (VBM) landed in Kolkata on September 17.

Stating that former Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha wrote to the Centre, she said present Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay will also write to the Ministry of Civil Aviation in this regard.

This comes when 341 people landed in Kolkata Airport in three international flights from London, Dubai and Doha on Monday and Kolkata Airport recorded the highest passenger count since resumption of operations after remaining closed due to nationwide lockdown by facilitating more than 33,000 passengers and 262 flights.