Soon, fly daily to Singaporefrom Chandigarh

Passengers from the tricity will soon be able to fly directly to Singapore as Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport is planning to introduce this route from October 27.
Expected to operate daily, the flight will be part of the winter schedule that will be implemented from October 27.
“IndiGo Airlines have scheduled a flight from Chandigarh to Singapore. However, we are awaiting confirmation from them, which is expected by October 20. We are also trying for other international destinations, like London and Istanbul,” said Ajay Verma, chief executive officer (CEO) of Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport.
He explained that IndiGo was a codeshare partner with Qantas Airlines that operated several flights from Singapore to different countries. A codeshare flight is an agreement between airlines to sell seats on each other’s flights.
Only two int’l flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi currently
Currently, the airport offers only two international flights to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
After the flight to Sharjah was discontinued in October 2023, the airport’s only international link was the IndiGo flight to Dubai, which operates seven days a week. Another daily flight to Abu Dhabi was launched in April this year. Meanwhile, the much-anticipated direct flight to London, initially slated for launch in October 2022, remains grounded.
The proposed route aimed to connect Mohali with either Heathrow Airport in London or Birmingham Airport.
Apart from the two international flights, the airport caters to 33 domestic routes across the country, including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Indore, Leh, Jaipur, Lucknow, Chennai, Patna, Pune, Srinagar, Jammu, Hisar and Dharamshala.
Vivek Kapoor, a Mohali-based industrialist, said, “Last month, we held a meeting with airport authorities and urged them to introduce more international flights. Travellers from the region are forced to head to New Delhi or Amritsar airports by road or rail before flying to destinations in Europe, America and Australia.”
He further added, “A direct flight to Singapore would mean tricity residents wouldn’t have to travel to Delhi to reach Singapore and even other further destinations from there.”
Inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 11, 2015, the airport, formerly known as Chandigarh International Airport, is a joint venture of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), Punjab and Haryana governments.
With a ₹485-crore investment, Punjab and Haryana each have a 24.5% stake, while the AAI maintains a majority share of 51%. Punjab had given 307-acre land in Mohali for the airport project. The airport runway is located in Chandigarh while the international terminal is located on the south side of the runway in Jhiurheri village, Mohali.
The airport was renamed Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport in September 2022, commemorating the freedom fighter’s 115th birth anniversary.
According to airport sources, international flights from Chandigarh will truly expand only when foreign carriers get a “point of call,” which implies a bilateral air services agreement between countries.
In its report in July last year, a parliamentary standing committee had noted that Indian carriers had fewer points of call abroad compared to international carriers at Indian airports. The committee had urged the civil aviation ministry to secure more points of call for Indian carriers abroad.