Alliance Air signs MoU with North-East Council on air connectivity

Alliance Air, the wholly -owned subsidiary of Air India, today signed an MoU with the North East Council (NEC) for flight operations in the North East under viability gap funding (cost minus revenue).

Anil Mehta, COO, Alliance Air (right) and V B Pathak, joint secretary, DoNER, exchanging portfolios after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding. Also in the picture are civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati, minister for DoNER  Gen (Retd) VK Singh (Retd), and  Rohit Nandan, CMD, Air India.

The MoU was signed in New Delhi between Anil Mehta, COO, Alliance Air and V B Pathak, joint secretary, ministry of development of north eastern region (DoNER).

Also present on the ocassion were Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati, minister for civil aviation, and Gen (Retd) V K Singh, minister for DoNER, Rohit Nandan, chairman and managing director, Air India, V Somasundaram, secretary, civil aviation, Rajiv Takru, secretary, DoNER and other senior officials.

Alliance Air has been operating flights to the north east since January 2003, under viability gap funding to cover losses on the operations in the hilly region.

Alliance Air continued services to the North East upto 31 December 2012,  operating 65 flights per week to the north Eest.  From January 2013, outstanding VGF forced the airline to restructure its operations in the region and consequently ATR services were discontinued on some routes.

However, Alliance Air continued operations between Kolkata-Silchar, Kolkata-Guwahati and Silchar-Imphal with ATR aircraft. In July 2013, it also restored five times weekly flights on the Kolkata-Shillong route.

Besides the ATR operations, Air India has also been operating flights in the north east region with its Airbus fleet between Kolkata and Silchar, Dimapur, Dibrugarh, Aizawl,  Imphal,  Agartala and Guwahati apart from Delhi-Guwahati routes.

Under the current MoU, Alliance Air will provide air services to Shillong, Tezpur, Lilabari, Silchar and Guwahati with ATR 42 type of aircraft till 31 March, 2016, under the viability gap funding arrangement. North East Council (NEC) will assist Alliance Air in obtaining concessions on ATF, Landing, RNFC, rates, etc.

The actual cost of operations shall be reviewed every three months based on the proposed cost and VGF amount will be fixed accordingly.