By IANS,
New Delhi : The government Wednesday decided to increase flight frequencies of the national carrier Air India’s budget arm Alliance Air to Arunachal Pradesh.
The move comes in the wake of two recent chopper crashes in the state, which crippled Pawan Hans Helicopter’s operations in the state.
“The ministry has decided to increase the services of Alliance Air to Lilabari and Tezpur due to no-operation of Pawan Hans Helicopter Limited (PHHL) services to Arunachal Pradesh,” the civil aviation ministry said in a statement.
According to the statement, the services to the region would be increased by deploying propeller-driven ATR aircraft, which have a seat capacity of around 70 passengers.
The increase in services would take the total number of flights to Tezpur and Lilabari to six flights per week.
PHHL, whose two-helicopters crashed recently, had to temporarily shut operations as the last remaining Mi-172 chopper was undergoing overhaul.
Earlier the national carrier Air India had increased its Delhi-Guwahati flights for a period of one month till mid June.
Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu had died in a helicopter crash early May.