The long-pending demand of Barodians of a morning flight to Delhi has finally been fulfilled by the Ministry of Civil Aviation with Jet Airways agreeing to start the service from October 30. This has come as a major relief for locals,particularly traders. Federation of Gujarat Industries (FGI) officials,who had approached private airlines to consider increasing the number of flights and also improve the connectivity on several occasions,said the flight would fly from new Delhi at 5.35 am and land in Vadodara at 7.10 am daily. The same flight would fly back to New Delhi at 7.40 am. Early this year,following representations by FGI and local MP Balkrishna Shukla,Air India had agreed to start an additional Delhi-Vadodara-Delhi flight from March 27. But the service was cancelled even before it could take off. But this time,we are not anticipating any such problem as it has been formally communicated to us, said a senior official of the Federation of Gujarat Industries. We had been communicating with the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Department of Civil Aviation. We had also written to at least five airline companies to increase the frequency. Now,our long-pending demand has been met, said FGI chairperson Geeta Goradia. The FGI is also demanding extension of Air Traffic Control Watch Hours. ATC Vadodara is presently maintaining two watches,from 6 am to 12.30 pm and from 4 pm to 9.30 pm to cater to the civil air traffic. The ATC Watch Hours would help the companies which have private planes. If Udaipur,which has lesser air traffic,is maintaining morning to night watch hours,there is no reason that Vadodara cant do it, Goradia said.
