Intra-state air taxis to fly in MP again

BHOPAL: Two years after Ventura Air Connect stopped operating in Madhya Pradesh due to heavy losses, Madhya Pradesh government plans to resume intra-state flights to connect key cities in the state. The flights will start soon after the tender process gets over next month. Ventura operated from 2012-14 with its nine-seater Cessna aircraft. Commissioner-cum-administrator of MP Tourism Development Corporation (MPTDC), Hari Ranjan Rao, said, "Our contract with Ventura ended in 2014. Now, fresh tenders have been floated and the process to decide the new operator will be over next month."

In 2015-16, project of Supreme Aviation, another air taxi operator, had failed to take off. The operations were scheduled to start from January 16 this year. "However, they were not able to get approval from Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)," Rao said. The operations were planned on Indore-Bhopal, Indore-Jabalpur, Indore-Khajuraho and Indore-Shridi routes. Initially, Supreme Aviation, in collaboration with MPTDC, had planned to connect 12 cities, including popular tourist destinations of Kanha, Bhandhavgarh and Gwalior with Indore and Bhopal. The company had also planned inter-state operations on Nagpur, Agra and Ahmedabad routes.

Earlier, intra-state air taxi services by Ventura Air Connect were suspended in September 2014, as the operations had turned "financially unviable", government sources said. But, according to Rao, it was a three-year contract with Ventura and it expired in 2014.

Talking to TOI, chairman and managing director of Ventura UK Bose said, "It did not work as we started losing money. There were occasions when Ventura's planes flied with no passengers." Besides, he said nobody knew that Ventura was operating within the state. "Integration of seats with the travel portals like makemytrip.com among others was the solution. However, they did not want to enter into an agreement with a new company because they had suffered financial losses in the past in a pact with some new operators. They had sold out tickets and the operators had stopped flying, leading to heavy losses," he said. This would not work without travel portal integration, he underlined. Rao said, "We will allow the new operator to connect cities outside MP like Nagpur etc."