The Hindu : Front Page : Mangalore-Abu Dhabi flight inaugurated

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Friday, Feb 16, 2007
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Mangalore-Abu Dhabi flight inaugurated

Raviprasad Kamila

HISTORIC LANDING: The Air India Express flight from Abu Dhabi that landed at Bajpe Airport on Thursday night. — Photo: R. Eswarraj

MANGALORE: Air India Express, the low cost airline of Air India, started its Abu Dhabi-Muscat-Mangalore and Mangalore-Abu Dhabi-Muscat service from Thursday.

With this, Mangalore is connected to two more locations in West Asia. The city had direct flight only to Dubai when the same airlines started its Mangalore-Dubai tri-weekly service on October 3, 2006.

The flight Boeing 737/800 (Abu Dhabi-Muscat-Mangalore) from Abu Dhabi and via Muscat landed at the Bajpe airport here at 10 p.m. on Thursday.

It took off (Mangalore--Abu Dhabi-Muscat) to Abu Dhabi at 11.55 p.m. to reach Muscat later. This flight will operate twice a week on Thursdays and Saturdays.

The flight to Dubai operates on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Abu Dhabi-Muscat flight became the second flight of Air India Express to operate between Mangalore and West Asia. The flight that landed at the Bajpe airport had taken off from Abu Dhabi at 4.10 p.m. (Abu Dhabi time).

B.R. Shetty, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of New Medical Centre Group of Companies that consists of UAE Exchange, Abu Dhabi; Rajesh Sequeira, co-ordinator, Karnataka NRI Forum, UAE; and Sudhir Shetty, general manager, NMC Group of Companies; were among those who landed here in the inaugural flight.

Mr. Shetty told presspersons at the airport that earlier if people from Mangalore were to fly to Abu Dhabi, they had to travel via Mumbai. People had to spend approximately 12 hours to reach Abu Dhabi via Mumbai.

Today, they took only four-and-a-half hours to reach Mangalore from Abu Dhabi. They spent an hour at Muscat. Describing the journey as a great experience, Mr. Sequeira said that people at the aircraft were happy and screamed in joy.

Mr. Vasudeva was present at the airport to receive the passengers of the inaugural flight.

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