After Agartala, Air India discontinues full-service operations at Imphal;  Air India Express to fly in

After Agartala, Air India has discontinued the operation of its full-service carrier from the Imphal International Airport, but the Tata group owned airline’s low-cost subsidiary Air India Express would continue services from the Manipur capital, the Airport Authority of India (AAI) said on Monday.

A senior AAI official said that after the auto-to-steel conglomerate TATA group took over the control of Air India in January 2022, they gradually discontinued the operation of its full-service carrier in the domestic airports of the country, especially in the small airports.

However, they continued the operations of the airline's low-cost subsidiary Air India Express services in most of the domestic airports in the country, the official, who did not want to be identified, told an official.

Air India has discontinued the operation of its full-service carrier from the Bir Tikendrajit International Airport in Imphal on Sunday onwards.

The discontinuation decision was part of the airline’s pre-planned strategy, the official said.

According to the official, the airline authority has discontinued its full-fledged service carrier three months back from the Agartala’s Maharaja Bir Bikram (MBB) Airport, the second busiest airport in the northeastern region after the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International (LGBI) Airport in Guwahati.

"The Air India Express, the airliner company’s low-cost subsidiary, would continue its operations at Imphal with Boeing 737 aircraft to ensure continued air connectivity," said the AAI official.

Along with the LGBI Airport in Guwahati, the Imphal airport enjoys international status in the northeastern region. Currently, there are 17 operational airports in the northeast region -- Guwahati, Silchar, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Tezpur, Lilabari and Rupsi (Assam), Tezu, Pasighat, Ziro, and Donyi Polo Airport (Arunachal Pradesh), Agartala (Tripura), Imphal (Manipur), Shillong (Meghalaya), Dimapur (Nagaland), Lengpui (Mizoram), and Pakyong (Sikkim).