Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's lament about lack of industry reducing Calcutta from 18 flights to London a week to no air link with Europe soars on city-specific statistics: Delhi has 22 flights to Europe every day, Mumbai 12, Bangalore three and Chennai two.
Aviation industry experts said on Sunday that direct flights to Europe vanished from Calcutta along with the flight of capital, starting in the mid-1970s.
"There is no business case for airlines in Bengal to start flights to Europe. This means, there is not enough economic activity in Bengal to excite the airlines," said Kapil Kaul, CEO (South Asia) at the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, a global aviation research and consulting practice.
On Saturday, Sen had said at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet: "The small industries are still there but the big industries have withdrawn. When I went to London first, I went by boat - not an adventurous boat, but by a ship - as I could not afford the airfare. In those days, there were 18 flights from Calcutta to London every week. Now there is not one. There is not a single flight to anywhere in Europe..."
In Chennai, which has direct air connectivity with London and Frankfurt, airlines get a steady supply of business fliers round the year from the robust automobile industry there. Chennai has earned the moniker "Detroit of India" because of brands like BMW, Nissan, Hyundai Motors India, Ford India, Royal Enfield and Renault India setting up shop floors there.
Bangalore, of course, is the country's IT hub and Mumbai its financial nerve centre. And Delhi isn't just the capital; it has Noida and Gurgaon as its industrial catchments along with other economic zones
To Read the News in Full 25/01/16 Sanjay Mandal/Telegraph
Aviation industry experts said on Sunday that direct flights to Europe vanished from Calcutta along with the flight of capital, starting in the mid-1970s.
"There is no business case for airlines in Bengal to start flights to Europe. This means, there is not enough economic activity in Bengal to excite the airlines," said Kapil Kaul, CEO (South Asia) at the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, a global aviation research and consulting practice.
On Saturday, Sen had said at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet: "The small industries are still there but the big industries have withdrawn. When I went to London first, I went by boat - not an adventurous boat, but by a ship - as I could not afford the airfare. In those days, there were 18 flights from Calcutta to London every week. Now there is not one. There is not a single flight to anywhere in Europe..."
In Chennai, which has direct air connectivity with London and Frankfurt, airlines get a steady supply of business fliers round the year from the robust automobile industry there. Chennai has earned the moniker "Detroit of India" because of brands like BMW, Nissan, Hyundai Motors India, Ford India, Royal Enfield and Renault India setting up shop floors there.
Bangalore, of course, is the country's IT hub and Mumbai its financial nerve centre. And Delhi isn't just the capital; it has Noida and Gurgaon as its industrial catchments along with other economic zones
To Read the News in Full 25/01/16 Sanjay Mandal/Telegraph
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