Air India to start New Delhi-Gorakhpur flight service from Jan 15

New Delhi: In a boost to regional air connectivity, state-owned Air India on Wednesday said it will launch its flight services to Gorakhpur from here, which will be operated six days a week.

The new flight will offer connection to flyers travelling to various domestic and international destinations from Gorakhpur, Air India said in a statement.

The airline will operate a 70 seater ATR 72-600 aircraft on the newly-introduced route, it said.

In the draft policy, which is expected to be sent to Union Cabinet for its approval in the third week of this month, the Civil Aviation Ministry had proposed a raft of measures to bolster regional air connectivity, including by way of levying additional cess and providing viability gap funding.

"RCF (Regional Connectivity Fund) will be funded by a levy of 2 percent on all domestic and international tickets.

The RCF levy will be applied on all routes other than Cat IIA routes and Regional Connectivity Scheme(RCS) routes," according to the draft policy.

The Government had earlier proposed to levy on all air tickets from this month, but deferred the plan till the policy was in place.

The government expects to mop up about Rs 1,500 crore annually from imposition of the levy.