No more, take offs from Belgaum Sambra airport

Yes this has happened again to Belgaum, the only Kingfisher flight from Belgaum to Bangalore will stop flying from 17^th June 2009. I am saying this as the website is not accepting any bookings after that date. In addition, the booking agents have been told that there would be no flights after 16 June.

  Mumbai – Belgaum route was canceled due to lack of traffic and this time Belgaum Bangalore route is being cancelled due to the same reasons of less traffic it is said. Earlier the Bangalore flight was on all days then it was rescheduled to 4 days in a week and now no more flights.

The worst part of the story then why is that land acquisition was done from farmers for expansion of the airport when there will be no take offs from there. The said Sambra airport is supposed to be completed by 2010, what will fly from there, needs to be seen.

 Fertile farmland from farmers was acquired for the expansion process, why was this done when no airline wants to fly from here. Hasn’t the Airports authority looked into the feasibility? Poor farmers and commuters of Belgaum are loosing on both fronts, farmers lost their land and commuters their way to air travel. 

I asked a frequent traveler earlier on this route and he said, he now prefers the train rather than the air because getting down at the new BIAL airport and then commuting to Bangalore city takes a lot of time and almost half the air fare. This could be one reason for low traffic he added.

 May what the reason is; no more take offs from Belgaum airport. May be it will converted into a museum or even a record of sorts a full fledged airport with no take offs.

 Poor Belgaumites!

Mallya to brew beer from Sambra Belgaum

Liquor barren Vijay Mallya will set up a distillery unit on the Sambra Muchandi Road in 300 acres of land. This could be a good start once this distillery unit commences production.

 

The land prices along the Sambra, Halga have reached new heights due to these kind land acquisitions.

 

Hundreds of acres of fertile land have already been acquired for Airport expansion many other acquisitions plans have been made in the same area.

 

Source: Tarun Bharat

Belgaum airport will get night landing facility

Mr L.L. Krishnan, Regional Executive Director (Southern Region), Airports Authority of India (AAI) said that the Belgaum (Sambra) airports runway will be strengthened at a cost of Rs.15 crores. Night landing facility will be provided at Belgaum airport in six months, he said.
Hope all is done as it is said. In fact earlier there were planes that used to land in the evenings or late evenings but all was stopped for reasons unknown. Now there is a single Bangalore flight and what is the use of night landing has to be seen. The Mumbai flight has not yet been started, even after representations to the govt.
I guess this is how the govt. works make facility for night landing and then they will say as there no flights coming in the night we will remove the system. (Cant they think before it is done)
Source

Revamp of belgaum airport by 2008

Source: http://www.business-standard.com
Apart from the 35 airports taken up for modernisation, the AAI (Airports Authority of India) will invest around Rs 490 crore to develop 11 smaller airports like Akola, Belgaum, Cooch Behar, Gondia, Surat and Srinagar. All these airports are also projected to be developed by the end of 2008.

Belgaum Railway Station New Plan

http://mahiuk.googlepages.com/rail.htm