SHILLONG, Jan 14: The Meghalaya Transport Corporation (MTC) on Saturday signed an agreement with domestic carrier SpiceJet for operating direct flights between Shillong and the national capital.
The flights will operate twice a week on Monday and Friday.
SpiceJet approached the state government and offered to operate the Delhi-Shillong-Delhi flights on its own as per the extant terms of MTC. SpiceJet has a total fleet of 23 Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 aircraft. The same aircraft will be deployed for the Delhi-Shillong-Delhi route. The flights are expected to start operating from February.
It may be recalled that the state government had engaged Big Charter Pvt Ltd (FlyBig) in 2020 to operate flights on the Shillong-Delhi route.
FlyBig had deployed Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 aircraft on the route which was procured on wet lease from SpiceJet. However, FlyBig later expressed its inability to continue the operations.
Later, the agreement with FlyBig was terminated but not before the government had paid over Rs 2 crore to the firm.
Transport Minister Dasakhiatbha Lamare had candidly admitted that the “government’s move to sign a deal with FlyBig to operate flight service on the Shillong-New Delhi route was a mistake and the department has learnt a hard lesson after spending over Rs 2 crore on the same”.
