Spicejet introduces Bagdogra-Kathmandu flight

On August 13th 2014, Spicejet introduced an international flight linking Bagdogra to Kathmandu. For those of you who are not familiar, Bagdogra is the airstrip in the Darjeeling foothills and serves as a major hub for Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Dooars, Sikkim and the Bhutan foothills.

This thrice a week flight which will originate from Kolkata and fly to Kathmandu with one stop at Bagdogra will go a long way to fulfilling the needs of both tourists and local travellers in the region who earlier had to drive to Bhadrapur airport in Nepal and then fly to Kathmandu or make the long fifteen hour drive from Siliguri to Kathmandu.

This flight will operate three times a week — on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “This is our first international flight from the state of West Bengal to Kathmandu. We believe this flight will not only facilitate tourism, but also be important for the growth of trade between the two neighbouring nations,” Kaneswaran Avili, chief commercial officer of SpiceJet Ltd, said.

With the introduction of this flight, SpiceJet will become first Indian airline to operate international flights between Kathmandu and Bagdogra. This new service will help the people in Kathmandu have comfortable connectivity with Bagdogra and Kolkata.

Spicejet has started with an introductory fare of Rs 99 plus taxes on the Bagdogra- Kathmandu sector.

With this connection, Kolkata also gets linked to Kathmandu  six days a week (excluding Sundays) as Air India is flying to Kathmandu from Kolkata four times as week.

One can also expect rationalisation of fares on the Kolkata-Kathmandu sector.