GoFirst Airlines announces flights to Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru from new Goa Airport

GoFirst, a domestic airline, announced on Friday that it would fly 42 times a week between Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru from the new international airport in Mopa, North Goa. GoFirst said in a statement that the airline will continue to operate from its current airfield at Dabolim in the southern section of the state. Currently, the Wadia Group airline offers 65 nonstop weekly flights to and from Dabolim airport to popular locations throughout the nation.

The state's second airport is set to be developed by GMR Airports Ltd through its subsidiary GMR Goa International Airport Limited (GGIAL) on design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) basis inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday. The commercial flight services from the new facility will commence on January 5.

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Currently, only 70 flights land at the Dabolim airport, a civil enclave, every day. No landing is permitted from 9 am to 2 pm at the facility. "As we expand our network in leisure destinations, Goa is an extremely important destination for us," Kaushik Khona, Chief Executive Officer at Go First, said.

The airline said it will operate its maiden flight to the new airport on the same day (January 5) at 8.50 am from Bengaluru, and other flights will follow. It added that Go First direct flights would connect Goa to Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad in the current network plan.

Further, the Mumbai-based airline said that it will continue its operations from the existing Goa airport; this new station is a move toward bolstering domestic connectivity to cater to the increased demand for leisure destinations.

Go First has been on a growth trajectory in recent times by initiating new domestic and international sectors. The new international airport is being constructed in four phases, with an annual passenger capacity of 4.4 million in Phase I, which will be scaled up to 5.8 million in Phase II.

The Phase-III capacity has been pegged at 9.4 million passengers per annum, and once Phase IV is also completed, the total capacity will reach 13.1 million passengers per annum.

In November 2016, GMR Airports Ltd (GAL), a GMR Infrastructure subsidiary, signed a concession agreement with the Goa government to develop and operate the greenfield international airport project at Mopa. Aviation safety regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had granted an aerodrome license to the new facility in late October, paving the way for starting commercial flight granted aerodrome license to the new facility paving the way for starting commercial flights operations from there.

With inputs from PTI