With several VVIPs, celebrities, and business heads joining the Ram Janmabhoomi temple consecration, the Ayodhya airport has received 42 landing requests of charter aircraft so far on January 22. The airport has a designated area for charter aircraft landing, and a VVIP lounge at the airport demarcated, said senior government officials.

“We are still tabulating the number of requests for the landing of the charter aircraft. However, so far, we have received 42 charter aircraft landings,” a senior official said requesting anonymity. He further added that the aircraft will be allowed landing at a designated area, and the guests will be received at the VVIP lounge.

Anticipated count

Meanwhile, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday said he anticipated around 100 chartered planes for the ‘pran pratishtha’ ceremony on January 22, boosting Ayodhya airport’s potential.

Reports have suggested that multiple industrialists including Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Gautam Adani, Ratan Tata, NR Narayan Muthry are part of a guest list of industry luminaries for the Ayodhya ceremony, along with this Natarajan Chandrasekaran of the Tata Group, and S N Subrahmanyan of the L&T Group. Besides industrialists, bollywood celebrities are also on the guest list.

In light of this, charter operators have multiple requests from Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, Chennai, Nagpur along with others. “We’ve seen a surge in interest with around 25 inquiries for charter flights to Ayodhya in anticipation of the upcoming inauguration. This represents a significant rise in demand compared to our usual volume for the region,” Kanika Tekriwal, Chief executive officer of JetsetGo told businessline.

Exponential demand

Rajan Mehra, Chief Executive Officer, Club One Air said the company has four charter requests on our Falcon aircraft for the inauguration at Ayodhya. “There is exponential demand for the inauguration. We expect more requests as the invites are still being sent out,” he said.

Industry players like JetSetGo said that the average fare ranges from 10 lakh to 20 lakh, depending on the size of the aircraft. It has 11 aircraft in its fleet. Whereas, Club One Air has marginally increased its falcon tariff from ₹4.50 lakh per hour to ₹4.75 lakh per hour recently.

According to an industry player, the Ayodhya airport does not have parking space, and given the influx in landing requests, players are being asked to park at nearby airports including Lucknow and Varanasi. The airport’s terminal building will have an area of 6,500 sqm, equipped to handle over 10 lakh passengers annually.

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