Dr. Charanjit Singh Gumtala, MP Ruby Sahota and Sameep Singh in her office
Amritsar, September 18, 2017: Amritsar Vikas Manch, an NGO from the holy city of Amritsar has taken up the demand of Punjabi Diaspora for starting direct flights between Canada to the holy city of Amritsar with Canadian Parliament members. During their visit to Toronto regarding start of direct flights, Manch Patron Dr. Charanjit Singh Gumtala and Overseas Secretary Sameep Singh visited the offices of MP Ruby Sahota from Brampton North, Raj Grewal from Brampton East and Sonia Sidhu from Brampton South.
During half an hour meeting with MP Ruby Sahota, they requested her personal intervention with regards to the start of flights between Toronto-Amritsar. They highlighted the fact that there are about six hundred thousand Punjabis living in Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and the same number in Western provinces of Canada. It is a long-standing demand of the Punjabi Diaspora to have direct flights to Amritsar, an important tourist destination on the World tourist map and religious capital of the Sikhs.
Dr. Gumtala requested the MP that all the Punjabi origin Canadian Ministers and MPs should launch a joint initiative to implement these flights. According to the current bilateral air service agreements between the two countries, India has allowed the airlines from Canada to land only at six metro airports in India. MPs should raise this issue with the Govt. of India and Canada to revise these bilateral agreements to include Amritsar airport .They should approach Air Canada, Toronto Airport Authority and other airlines to discuss initiation of these flights. This would remove the current burdens on our Punjabi Community especially for families travelling with children and those with disabilities feel particularly aggrieved with the current situation.
Sameep Singh in his presentation to the MPs, stated that Air India’s Amritsar-Birmingham-Toronto flight was the most successful flight in the history of Air India that re-routed flights via Delhi and later cancelled them. There is huge potential for Canadian carriers like Air Canada for these flights to Amritsar. Also, other airlines including British Airways, Lufthansa, KLM that already operates flights from all the big airports in Canada including Toronto and Vancouver can be requested to fly direct to Amritsar from their European hubs to make it a one-stop journey. He requested that raising the most important issue for direct flights to Amritsar from Toronto, Vancouver will be a great success for entire Punjabi Community in North America. Member of Parliament from UK Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi is also pursuing for direct flights to Amritsar from London. Regarding this issue, he has recently met Indian High Commissioner in London, Virgin Atlantic and Air India officials.
AVM has also written letters to Prime Minister of Canada Mr. Justin Trudeau and Transport Minister regarding these flights. Air Canada currently operates direct flights from Toronto to Delhi and Jet Airways connects Toronto with Delhi via Amsterdam. Majority of the passengers on these flights are from Punjab who would like to fly direct to Amritsar instead of facing the inconvenience of traveling from Delhi.
Manch members also appealed to the Punjabis living in Canada to jointly make an appeal to Canadian government, Air Canada, and other airlines to start these flights. Participating in a popular live TV program “Dateline Toronto” on popular Punjabi TV channel in North America, Sameep Singh along with senior journalist Kanwar Sandhu and host Dr. Balwinder Singh said that it is very unfortunate that even though Punjabis boasts the maximum number of Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) across the globe but there is still no direct air connectivity from Europe and North American to Punjab. Viewers also made calls to this live program and shared the inconvenience faced by them to fly from Delhi.