The tourist town of Dharamshala, the abode of Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, on Sunday, got connected with Jaipur via air as SpiceJet started a direct flight between the two tourist destinations.
It is the first link of Himachal Pradesh by air to a destination other than New Delhi and the airfare for the one-way journey has been fixed at Rs 3,645 per passenger.
A Kangra Airport official said a 90-seater SpiceJet aircraft with full capacity took off from the Jaipur Airport at 6.05 am and landed at the airport at Gaggal in Kangra district at 7.35 am.
The aircraft left the airport at around 11.40 am and reached Jaipur at 1.05 pm and the full capacity of passengers has raised hopes of the officials of an even better response to the newly started air service.
SpiceJet would run the flight service between these two major tourist destinations on a daily basis. Besides this, helicopter service would also be started on Dharamshala-Chandigarh and Dharamshala-Shimla route within a week, the official said.
The flight service has raised hopes of the hotel industry in Kangra as the hoteliers were expecting that this would boost the arrival of high-end tourists in the region.
However, they are calling for starting flight service between Dharamshala-Mumbai and Dharamshala-Chandigarh as well.
It is worth mentioning here that with the start of non-stop flight between Dharamshala-Jaipur, the number of flight services at the airport has increased to four. Earlier, three flights were offering air services to Dharamshala from New Delhi.