Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has conveyed his best wishes while expressing happiness over the commencement of the services of Akasa Air from the state capital on Christmas.

On the eve of the commencement of the first flight of Akasa Air from Lucknow, the officials of the airlines greeted the chief minister by giving him the first boarding pass.

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The chief minister said that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee represented Lucknow five times in the Lok Sabha. “Today, on his birth anniversary, new air service is being started from Lucknow to Mumbai and Bangalore. It is heartening for all of us,” he remarked.

Chief Minister  Yogi said that Uttar Pradesh has benefited immensely from the ‘Udaan’ scheme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, pointing out that the PM’s dreams of ‘air flight of a common man wearing slippers’ and better air services in Uttar Pradesh are coming true.

Collecting information from the officials of Air Asia regarding the model, route, fuel, fare etc., of the aircraft, the Chief Minister said that Akasa Air is starting its air service for the Bengaluru-Lucknow-Mumbai route. It should also be linked to Varanasi. This route is the most frequented. This will prove to be very useful for both the people of Uttar Pradesh and Akasa Air,” he said.

He said that connectivity has a big contribution in speeding up the pace of development.  In this context, expressways are being constructed in the state and more and more cities are being connected with air services. The state government is also taking the cooperation of the Airport Authority of India for the necessary infrastructure development to improve the air services.

The CM said that before 2017, the state had airports mainly in Lucknow and Varanasi. Gorakhpur and Agra had partially functional airports. Then air service was available only from 04 airports to 25 destinations, today 09 airports are operational and work is going on at 10. Today there is a facility of air service from the state to 75 destinations.

He said that before the year 2017 there was only one flight from Gorakhpur to Delhi. Today there are 14 flights and “when I ask, I get to know that all come full and go full, this has given a new pace to the development of Gorakhpur,” he remarked.

Chief Minister Adityanath said that the state government is getting 10 new airports constructed. Air service is going to start in areas like Aligarh, Azamgarh, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Chitrakoot, Shravasti and Sonbhadra. Until recently this was unimaginable. An airport is being built in Chitrakoot at a very high altitude.

The CM asked Air Akasa officials that air service should be started from Lucknow, Varanasi or Kushinagar to Kathmandu. There is a demand for air flight services from here to Buddhist countries as well. Akasa Air should also consider this regard, he said.