Jagson Airlines takes off from Pondicherry

Pondicherry, June 14 (UNI) After a gap of about 15 years the Pondicherry Airport revived its operations today with the Delhi-based Jagson Airlines operating its 18-seater Dornier aircraft.

Pondicherry Lt Governor M M Lakhera flagged off the inaugural flight to Tirupathi, at 1105 hrs. The inaugural function was a low-key affair with the model code of conduct for civic polls in force.

The first fight had no passenger on board barring four toppers in SSLC and Plus-Two examinations from government schools, tour operators, members of the CII, U K Bose, president and CEO of Jagson airlines and vice-president Koustav Dhar. The aircraft will return to Pondicherry later in the day.

Official sources said, Jagson would be operating daily services to Chennai, Tirupathi and Bangalore except on Sundays. As per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the Government, the latter will have to fill 50 per cent of seats -nine seats- every day. Services to Coimbatore was under consideration, official sources said.

Vinod Kumar, Head of Business Development, told newspersons that Jagson was looking forward to expand services with bigger aircrafts with the Government of Pondicherry showing interest in the expansion of the airport.

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