After the cheapest car, one of the world’s premier airlines bid adieu to the city. In the wee hours of March 29, a British Airways (BA) flight left Kolkata for London for the last time. After 80 years of operation.

For 76 year-old Renu Mazumdar, life will not be the same again. Twice every year, for the last 15 years, she would board BA 146 and fly non-stop to London to meet her son Kallol Majumdar, a practising doctor in the Isle of Wight. “I need a wheelchair to get into the aircraft. The 11-hour journey was in itself quite an ordeal. With British Airways discontinuing its flight to London, I do not know how I will manage a stopover journey, the only option left now,” says Majumdar.

The withdrawal was announced in November last, when the airlines cited “route rationalisation” as the reason for its decision. In spite of a load factor of around 70 per cent, heavily

discounted ticketing, prompted by Lufthansa’s introduction of the direct Kolkata-Frankfurt flight in 2006, the revenue has shrunk.

A few moments before the final touchdown on March 29, the pilot of the Boeing-777 announced that this would be the British Airways’ last flight to Kolkata. “A significant section of the passengers were elderly people with roots in Kolkata, who hastily preponed their return from London because this was the last available direct flight,” said Kavita Jhunjhunwala, a business traveller, who arrived by the last flight in early hours of March 29.

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