New flights to Lakshadweep on cards as PM Modi’s visit, improved connectivity spurs travel demand

By Pune Media On Jan 5, 2025

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Lakshadweep on January 4 last year brought the islands into spotlight and now a year later more and more Indians are choosing to travel there for holiday.

Daily passenger arrivals at Agatti airport in Lakshadweep rose five-fold in the winter season on a year-on-year basis with an increase in flights. Alliance Air and FLY91 are evaluating extra flights to Lakshadweep to support trade and tourism.

Maldives hit

Between April and November 2024, Agatti airport handled 69,027 passengers. During the same period in 2023 it handled 28,144 passengers. The rise in Lakshadweep’s appeal came amid waning popularity of Maldives among Indians in early 2024. This was following a strain in ties between India and Maldives after three of its ministers made derogatory remarks against Modi. While ties between the two are normal again, travel from India to Maldives has taken a hit.

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On the other hand, Lakshadweep has gained with the growing connectivity. Last winter, Lakshadweep’s only airlink was Alliance Air’s daily flight from Kochi. In April, IndiGo and FLY91 launched their flights to Lakshadweep. Now Agatti airport sees 25 flights per week connecting it to Bengaluru, Goa and Kochi. All the flights are operated by 72 seater ATR-72 aircraft.

At present Agatti airport sees around 250-260 passenger arrivals daily. The number of departing passengers is lower due to operational limitations at the airport. Departing aircraft can’t take off with full load due to shorter runway length and presence of trees in the departure path.

New flights

“Our Goa-Lakshadweep flight is performing very well. Passengers from Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru connect on our flight daily. We are happy with the performance of the sector and we are seriously considering new flights to Lakshadweep from destinations like Kozhikode in the summer schedule,” said Manoj Chacko, MD& CEO, FLY91.

Chacko said in the past nine months the airline has maintained excellent on-time performance with only a handful of disruptions due to bad weather at Lakshadweep. The airline also facilitated the carriage of grocery, fruits and vegetables to Lakshadweep during monsoon months by giving extra baggage allowance at discounted rates, he added.

“We will definitely add more flights to Lakshadweep. We are targeting next winter schedule for new launches as we expect our grounded aircraft to re-enter service in next six to eight months,” said Alliance Air’s CEO Rambabu Ch.

Published on January 5, 2025

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