SpiceJet has become the first airline to conduct flight services to Pondicherry, the former French colony that is a prominent tourist attraction in South India.
The flights will be from Hyderabad. With this new flight, Puducherry will be connected with Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Tirupati, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Vijaywada and Varanasi with convenient onward connections on the SpiceJet network.
The Hyderabad-Puducherry flight becomes the third daily flight to be launched by SpiceJet under the UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme.
Puducherry is one of the four un-served markets the airline will be operating to under the UDAN scheme.
Flight SG 1005 was given a ceremonial flag off at 11:40 am which departed from Puducherry on its maiden flight to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad.
Seen as an education, healthcare and tourism hotspot of the country, Puducherry is also home to several big IT software and hardware giants and has seen remarkable growth in recent years.
SpiceJet has been awarded six proposals and 11 routes under the first phase of the Government of India’s UDAN Regional Connectivity Scheme.
Out of the six finalised proposals four will cater to unserved markets of Adampur, Kandla, Puducherry and Jaisalmer whereas two will be for underserved markets of Porbandar and Kanpur. Flight operations have already commenced on Mumbai-Porbandar-Mumbai and Mumbai-Kandla-Mumbai routes from 10th July.