Recently, the Ministry of Civil Aviation commenced the flight operations on the Keshod-Mumbai air route under the Regional Connectivity Scheme- UDAN. The airline- Alliance Air was awarded the route under the bidding process of UDAN RCS-4.1. With this, as many as 417 routes would be operationalized under the UDAN scheme. The airline on this route will fly on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday and will deploy its ATR 72-600 aircraft, which is a 70- seater turbo prop aircraft, designed for shorter-distance flights. Also, with this, Alliance Air will become the first airline to connect Keshod in Gujarat to Mumbai, Maharashtra under the UDAN scheme.
According to the Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, two famous world-famous tourist attractions- Somnath Temple and Gir National Park are situated near Keshod. Now tourists will be able to easily visit both the places. Besides, various industries are established in Keshod like textile, furniture, cement, chemicals, etc. which will also be benefitted from the commencement of the new route. The minister also said his ministry will also connect Keshod with Ahmedabad. In this year’s summer schedule, the city of Ahmedabad has been connected to Agra, Amritsar, and Ranchi.
Similarly, the cities of Porbandar and Rajkot have been linked with Mumbai. Also, two new greenfield airports will be constructed in Hirasar and Dholera which will have 23 lakh and 30 lakh passengers per year with a budget allocation of Rs 1405 crore and Rs 1305 crore respectively. Moreover, a special air route linking Porbandar and the national capital will start on 27 April, informed the minister. It used to take about 16 hours to travel by road from Keshod to Mumbai, but now, the travel time got reduced to just 1 hour 25 minutes with the commencement of the new flight. The ATR-72 600 will depart from Mumbai at 12:00 PM and arrive Keshod at 1:25 PM and the flight will depart from Keshod at 1:50 PM and arrive Mumbai at 3:10 PM.