The coronavirus pandemic appears to be coming to an end with numerous vaccines now being developed, and Air India is planning to operate non-stop flights on the Chennai-London route from January next year, making Tamil Nadu’s capital the ninth city to be connected with the British capital. Air India is currently operating non-stop flights to London from Delhi (seven flights a week), Mumbai (four flights a week), Kochi (three flights a week), Ahmedabad (two flights a week), Bengaluru (two flights a week), Goa (two flights a week), Kolkata (one flight a week) and Amritsar (one flight a week).
Tuesday 15th December marks the five-year anniversary of the re-commencement of the direct London-Ahmedabad Air India flight.
In 2015, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the resumption of this service before 60,000 people who had gathered at the Wembley Stadium, as he lauded the efforts of CB Patel, Publisher/Editor of Asian Voice for his relentless campaign on supporting the enterprising Gujarati community in the UK. PM Modi was on a three-day visit to the UK when he said, “Whenever my friend Shri CB Patel used to visit Gujarat, even when I was in Delhi, he used to “catch hold of my neck” on this matter. It is because of him, today I am announcing the resumption of the direct flight between London and Ahmedabad.”
Direct flights between the two cities was stopped nearly twelve years ago in 2008. Consequently, for over half a decade CB through Asian Voice and Gujarat Samachar had been representing the concerns of the diaspora who demanded the need for a direct flight service between Ahmedabad and London. CB as the pioneer of the campaign to restart this direct flight was helped by Manoj Ladwa, a corporate lawyer, a political strategist and Modi's director of communications. Matters were also picked up with India’s now Civil Aviation minister Hardeep Puri as over 30,000 people thrice signed up petition forms over the subject. The day of the re-commencement of the flight coincided with Sardar Patel Nirvana Day and the new the new flight catered to the strong demand of more than 6 lakh Indians from the Indian state of Gujarat. This ensured that the passengers from the economic and industrial hub of Gujarat, were no longer required to change the aircraft at Mumbai.
Arvindbhai M Patel and wife Naina A Patel, Baroda, who live in Croydon and were the first passengers to have taken the flight in 2015, had then said to Asian Voice, “For elderly people like us it has become very easy now. I have lived in Croydon for 30-40 years. I had no issues on this flight. We finished immigration in Ahmedabad. The food on flight was Indian vegetarian and it was good. Facility was good, we had a lot of fun. NaMo has done great by reinstating this direct flight. We had signed petition that Asian Voice and Gujarat Samachar had circulated. Thanks to you for helping us with this direct flight. Also, thanks to Mr Saurabh Patel to send us off.”
