Under the international Udaan scheme, Guwahati will soon be connected with Kathmandu,Dhaka, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Yangon, and Malaysia.
Currently, the Northeastern states have no international flights. As such, State Transport Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary recently informed that under the said scheme, six Southeast Asian countries, including Yangon (Myanmar) and Malaysia, will be connected with Guwahati.
He added that their government gave a commitment of INR 100 crore to the Centre for the viability gap funding. The authorities have already released INR 10.9 crore and bidding to select the operators has also been done. They are expecting to start the new flights as and when international air connectivity fully resumes.
As per the reports, the first international flight under the Udaan scheme in India was launched between Guwahati and Dhaka on July 1, 2019; however, its operation was put on hold in the same year a few months later, due to lack of adequate passengers.
Further, flight operations between Guwahati and Bangkok were also suspended from January 2020, which came as a major setback for the government’s plan to transform the city into a travel hub in Southeast Asia.
Reportedly, the last international commercial flight that operated through the Northeast was for Paro-Guwahati-Singapore, which was also suspended last year amid COVID scare.
As per the sources at the Airports Authority of India (AAI) of NE headquarters, they are now waiting for the flight schedule and intimation regarding the commencement date of the international flights. They added that Agartala and Imphal also have the potential to connect international destinations.
