Direct international flights started from Amritsar to Kabul.

The old terminal building of Amritsar Airport was inaugurated after renovating it.

With the success of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan Airlines, Singapore Airlines started direct Airlines from Singapore providing onward connection to Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Francisco etc. Even a cargo terminal was constructed by AAI in an area of 2256 sq.meter which has 80 tons capacity cold rooms, advance x-ray machine and proposal to upgrade the facilities.

With more than a dozen flights operating in the said year the total number of passengers handled by the Airport nearly touched 6 lacs out of which approximately 5 lacs passengers were international passengers. In just four years, the passenger growth at the airport was nearly 3½ times, which made it the fastest growing airport in the country along with good cargo operations, beating Goa and Ahmedabad Airports in terms of international passenger growth.

The integrated terminal building with an investment of more than Rs.150 crores equipped with modern facilities like inline x-ray, baggage inspection, conveyor system, flight information display system, Common Use Terminal Equipment and CCTV was inaugurated. The new terminal building is a blend of modern and Indian designs, constructed in glass and steel with Indian style arches and colors. The airport registered a passenger growth of 64.6% during April-December 2009 which made it the fastest growing airport in India. Qatar Airways also started its flights at Amritsar Airport using airbus A320/A321 with a capacity of 179 passengers as four times a week and after four months it switched to daily flight due to very good response. It connects passengers to its 140 destinations in the world from Doha. Data released by AAI every quarter shows that this flight is operating with 90 to 100% passenger load. During peak season, many times the flight is overbooked that proves the potential of having direct international flights from Amritsar and not via Delhi.

All of a sudden, many international flights from the Airport by govt. run Air India and private run Jet Airways either cancelled their flights or diverted the same via Delhi to benefit the newly constructed private airport at Delhi. Air India also announced a policy that all its international flights will depart only from Delhi and Mumbai Airports and passengers from all over India will be connected via these two airports using hub and spoke policy. Amritsar-London-Toronto flight was one of the busiest routes served by Air India but switching the flights via Delhi, the cargo business of Amritsar Airport was adversely affected. Primarily, the major effect was on the normal passengers who boarded flights from Amritsar because of the connecting flights which took them to Delhi kept them waiting at the Airport for 10-12 hours before boarding the final international flights, which caused great inconvenience for all the passengers and causing great hardship to them. This also resulted in surrendering of the passengers by Indian Carriers to the International Carriers, thus adding to the recurring loss of Indian Airlines of Rs.7200 crores.

Although Air India announced re-launching the flights to Birmingham from Amritsar via Delhi, but the demands of Punjabis for starting direct flights from Amritsar were not met with, citing the reason that hub and spoke policy of Air India does not support the same. Many complaints were moved by the patron of Amritsar Vikas Manch Dr. Charanjit Singh Gumtala regarding the starting of direct flights from Amritsar Airport, but to no avail. The Etihad Airlines agreed to fly to six more Indian destination including Amritsar but could not fly to these destinations directly as it is not entitled to do so under the bilateral air service agreements.

The present pity state of Amritsar Airport highlighted by various political leaders like Manohar Singh Gill, Former  Minister & MP Rajya Sabha, Member Parliament Shwait Malik, MP Rajya Sabha, Gurjeet Singh Aujla, MP Lok Sabha and Navjot Singh Sidhu, who have clearly stated that the Amritsar Airport has suffered a great setback after the privatization of Delhi Airport, which can be very well judged from the factual figures showing the drastic downfall in the international share of Amritsar Airport i.e. from 80% to 30% in the year 2015 due to diversion of flights to Delhi and the same can be verified from the fact that the international traffic at Amritsar has fallen substantially. Further, the substantial percentage of international traffic going from Delhi Airport is from Punjab, which shows the great injustice being done with the Amritsar Airport.

FlySpiceJet brings another New Year 2019 Gift for the Punjabis. Dehradun becomes 9th domestic and 17th overall Airport to be directly connected with Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport Amritsar… with Direct Non-Stop flights starting Jan 20, 2019.

ਸਪਾਈਸਜੈਟ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਪੰਜਾਬੀਆਂ ਲਈ ਨਵਾਂ ਸਾਲ 2019 ਦਾ ਤੋਹਫ਼ਾ। ਦੇਹਰਾਦੂਨ ਨੋਵਾਂ ਘਰੇਲੂ ਅਤੇ 17ਵਾਂ ਹਵਾਈ ਅੱਡਾ ਬਣਿਆਂ ਜਿਸ ਨੂੰ ਸਿੱਧੇ ਤੌਰ ਤੇ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਰਾਮਦਾਸ ਜੀ ਅੰਤਰਰਾਸ਼ਟਰੀ ਹਵਾਈ ਅੱਡੇ ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤਸਰ ਨਾਲ ਜੋੜਿਆ ਗਿਆ। ਇਹ ਉਡਾਣ ੨੦ ਜਨਵਰੀ ੨੦੧੯ ਤੋਂ ਸ਼ੁਰੂ ਹੋਏਗੀ ਤੇ ਇਸ ਦੀ ਬੁਕਿੰਗ ਸ਼ੁਰੂ ਹੋ ਗਈ ਹੈ।