TheGuwahati-Dhaka flight of the Spicejet have been suspended indifitely as thereis no passenger and no future commercial viability.
In amajor setback to Assam's connectivity road map, especially vis-à-vis connectingASEAN capitals, the operator SpiceJet took the hard decision.
Themuch-hyped Guwahati-Dhaka direct flight operations was launched just threemonths back.
Thefirst ever flight between Guwahati and Dhaka under the Central government'sambitious International UDAN programme was flagged off on July 1 from theLokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport by Chief Minister SarbanandaSonowal who termed the day as historic.
"Afterit had launched the service, SpiceJet had first reduced the frequency of theflight service from daily to twice a week. Finally, in the wake of lukewarmresponse, it decided to suspend its operation on the route," a Spicejet sourceinformed.
Sourcesinformed that the suspension of direct flights between the two destinationswould affect the possibility of trade and cultural ties between thenortheastern region and the neighbouring country.
"Infact, this is not the first time that something of this kind has taken place.The ambitious Guwahati-Dhaka bus service, which was flagged off in 2014, couldnever become operational due to faulty policy or lack of farsightedness,"sources pointed out.
"After the direct flight between Guwahati andDhaka, the government is now looking to connect all the capitals of ASEANcountries," the Chief Minister had said during the flag-off ceremony on July 1.Already Bangkok-Guwahati flight is in place. But Dhaka-Guwahati was a big setback.
