Mangalore: MLC from Mangalore, Ivan D’Souza raised the issue of the stoppage of the Air India Express Mangalore Kuwait direct flights in the ongoing Legislative Council session. Ivan said that due to the stoppage of the direct flight operation, commuters from Mangalore have been badly hit. “Out of the 7.62 lac NRIs in Kuwait, 1.3 lac are from the coastal Karnataka region alone. They need to be given this facility,” he urged.

Responding to a question raised by the MLC,  the minister for infrastructure development and information Roshan Baig on Friday Juy 25th  said that the prime reason for stopping direct flights on Mangalore-Kuwait route was the lack of passenger response.

To this, Ivan D’Souza replied that when the Air India Express direct flight was in operation on this route, only 60 seats were reserved for Mangaloreans and the rest 120 were for Keralites who boarded from Calicut. “The seats reserved for Mangaloreans were always full, but the response was not the same from Keralites, which gave the impression that the overall response was less,” said Ivan.

“If not Air India, the government should at least make arrangements for private airlines to fly on this route,” he urged. He also pointed out that there was a strong lobby of officials preventing direct flights between Mangalore and Kuwait.

He assured the MLC that a delegation from the state would meet the minister of state for civil aviation in New Delhi to urge the restoration of direct flights from Mangalore to Kuwait. Stating that Ivan was being ‘sentimental’ Roshan Baig said, “Now we have G M Siddeshwara, who is from Karnakata, as the union minister of state for civil aviation. I will request him to resume the direct flight between Mangalore and Kuwait. “I will also take a delegation along with Ivan D’Souza to meet minister Siddeshwara”, he reiterated.