Spice Jet winding up operations from Nagpur?

NAGPUR: In another shocker for Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport, low cost airline Spice Jet may soon wind up operations from the city, sources have said. Spice Jet presently operates daily flights to Delhi and Bangalore, and is likely to discontinue flights from Nagpur from June 1.

Some months back, Kingfisher Airlines had discontinued its Hyderabad and Indore flights. More recently, in a strange move, national carrier Air India had started operating a smaller aircraft on the Delhi sector instead of the 114-seat Airbus 319 aircraft.

A local Spice Jet official told TOI, "As of now there is no official communication from headquarters about shutting operations from Nagpur. However, we have been asked to stop accepting bookings for both flights from June 1 onwards. Senior officials have verbally informed us that for the next few months the airline will not operate flights on these sectors. However, it is unclear if the closing of Nagpur services would be permanent."

However, local travel agents confirmed the development and said they have received official message from the airline to stop bookings for both destinations from June 1. This confirms the airline will wind up operations from the city soon. The exact plans are expected to be announced soon, the travel agents added.

Exactly a year ago, on May 15, 2011, Spice Jet had introduced daily flights on Delhi and Bangalore sector, giving flyers another option to these destinations. Later, to cash in on the festival season rush, it started daily flights on Hyderabad sector from September 28. Recently, it had also announced plans to start Chennai and Ahmedabad flights from Nagpur in a bid to expand its domestic routes with a new fleet of Boeing 737 and Q400 turboprop aircraft from Bombardier.

Spice Jet officials said, "We operated daily flights on Hyderabad sector but discontinued them due to poor response since March. But, on the positive side, passenger traffic to Bangalore and Delhi has picked up since last few months and both flights are operating with about 75 to 80% load. This is remarkable since Indigo also operates on both sectors while Air India and Go Air have flights on Delhi sector."

"We are unable to understand why the management wants to wind up operations from here in spite of a good response from passengers," they said.

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