VARANASI: In a major initiative to offer seamless international travel to people of relatively smaller cities, Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu on Thursday declared that India’s first ‘Hub and Spoke’ model was inaugurated at Varanasi’s Lal Bahadur Shastri airport.
By ensuring customs and immigration checks as well as baggage clearance for those travelling abroad are done at the point of departure itself, it avoids the inconvenience of carrying out these procedures at a larger transit airport.
The first Air India Easy Connect flight (AI 1111) with 180 passengers on board took off from Delhi at 9.23 am on Thursday. Naidu announced that the ‘Hub and Spoke’ will be offered in six more destinations within the six weeks. Elaborating on the advantages it offers, he said,
“Our new hub and spoke model paves the way for a monumental shift in how our citizens travel. Regardless of the city one lives, one can begin their international journey from their home city and travel across the globe with ease and confidence on India’s new wings.”
Presently, one needs to go to a hub airport, needs to come out of the terminal with the luggage and then clear immigration and customs process if one wants to leave to the US, London and Dubai, he said. “When this model is launched, there will be no need to do any international transit and flyers will smoothly travel to their international flight from within their terminal.”
Any city gets transformed even when a small innovation pertaining to aviation is launched there, the minister said. “It impacts the economy by offering a major thrust to employment as it gets connected to internationally.”
Litchies from India have reached Italy and products from Bihar have reached Singapore and Dubai offering good profits for the farmers due to international connectivity, he added. “Fruits, vegetables, silk, handloom and artefacts from Varanasi will now have an international market,” Naidu said.
“The smaller airport serves as the ‘spoke’ of the wheel while the larger one becomes the hub” said an aviation official. The Air India said it is leading a nationwide domestic rollout to connect more domestic ‘spoke’ cities.
Spoke and hub model
“Our new hub and spoke model paves the way for a monumental shift in how our citizens travel. Regardless of the city one lives, one can begin their international journey from their home city and travel across the globe with ease,” said Naidu. Presently, one needs to go to a hub airport, needs to come out of the terminal and then go through the procedures if one wants to leave to the US, London and Dubai, he said.