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Pondy takes wing

After 15 years, the first commercial flight from Pondicherry takes off. Deepa H. Ramakrishnan reports

PHOTO: T. SINGARAVELOU

OFF TO A FLYING START The students before boarding the 18-seater Dornier

"Drawn to scale" is a phrase usually seen on maps. Well, everything in Pondicherry, including the town, is drawn to scale. Everything is drawn to the scale of a `mini-polis'. For small is beautiful.

So, after 15 years, the first commercial passenger flight that took off from the small airport here to Tirupathi on Wednesday morning was a small 18-seater Dornier aircraft. It had four young passengers on board, the students of government schools, who had secured first and second positions in the SSLC and HSC exams.

People would once joke that Pondicherry has a port with no ships, a railway station with no trains, an airport with no planes and a beach with no sand! Today there are ships, trains and now, a plane.

The Dornier took off into the skies at around 11.10 a.m. and the passengers — Sumithra, Gayathri Jaubin, R. Rathnapratheep and Vasantharaja — had a whale of a time. Since it was their first time on a plane, it was exciting and scary as well. Gayathri Jaubin, who scored 1128 and came second in government schools in the higher secondary exam and plans to join the ECE stream, said it was a wonderful experience especially when the plane went through cloudbanks. "It was as if being in a cartoon film where you can see Goofy or Mickey flying into clouds and coming out with a pop!" she said.

R Rathnapratheep, who came first in HSC exams with 1155 marks, said that he would like to take his parents on a plane someday. Vasantharaja, a student of Tamil Thendral Thiru Vi Ka Government School, who scored 474 in SSLC exam, said that the return journey was even scarier because there were flashes of lightning.

M. Sumithra, who scored 473 marks in the SSLC exam and is a student of computer science in Vallalar Government School, said it was a thrilling experience. The students have all been to the Tirupati temple by road and on rail but this was the first time they went by air. However, the inaugural flight did not offer chocolates or juice to its passengers.

The flight was flagged off by the Pondicherry Lt. Governor M. M. Lakhera. He posed for photographs with the students and other government officials at this historic moment.

According to U. K. Bose, president and CEO of Jagson Airlines, the airline will be operating return flights, six days a week, to Chennai, Bangalore and Tirupati. "We will soon be launching our national carrier operations. We want to connect smaller cities to the bigger ones."

From Pondicherry, it will now take 20 minutes to reach Chennai and 45 minutes to Bangalore or Tirupati. The introductory fare to Chennai is Rs. 1,500, while to Tirupati or Bangalore Rs. 2,500. You can book tickets at the airport and also with Bonjour Bonheur Travels on Kosakadai Street.

Tourism Secretary A. Anbarasu said that the Pondicherry Government has written to the Government of India requesting that Indian (formerly Indian Airlines) should operate a Dornier aircraft between Cochin - Coimbatore - Pondicherry.

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