CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin on Wednesday urged Union Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiradiya M Scindia to resume the direct flight service between Chennai and Tokyo which was stopped during Covid pandemic days.
Since there is no air connectivity between Chennai and Tokyo, Stalin had to take a flight via Singapore to reach here. The chief minister, in his letter to the union minister, also said the number of flights between Madurai and Singapore should be increased by at least one daily flight at the earliest. He requested Scindia to consider the requests on a priority basis.
“In October 2019, All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japan’s largest airline, launched a direct flight service between Chennai and Tokyo which was discontinued during the pandemic. The lack of direct flight connectivity doubles the travel time between these two destinations by around 7 hours, which is significant. There have been persistent requests from the Japanese business community in TN to resume direct flight services between Chennai and Tokyo,” the chief minister said. Stalin also pointed out that Tamil Nadu is hosting the Global Investors’ Meet in January 2024 and to attract more investments from Japan, the resumption of direct flights would be necessary.
Giving more reasons for resuming direct flight service between Chennai and Tokyo, the Chief Minister said many large Japanese conglomerates like Nissan, Toshiba, Yamaha, Komatsu, Mitsubishi, and Hitachi have set up their manufacturing facilities in Tamil Nadu. Out of the 12 industrial townships established in India under the Japan-India Investment Promotion Partnership Program, three are in Tamil Nadu. With more than 600 Japanese companies having establishments in the state, over the last two decades, the influx of Japanese expatriates has slowly increased.
He said Japan also has a significant Tamil diaspora, in particular, professionals in IT and finance-related fields. Regarding his other request, the Chief Minister said Singapore has a sizeable population of nearly 4 lakh people of Tamil origin, who still maintain roots in their native towns and villages, predominantly in southern Tamil Nadu
“While there are multiple daily flight connecting between Singapore and Chennai and Trichy, and one daily flight between Singapore and Coimbatore, there is only a tri-weekly flight between Singapore and Madurai. This issue of more flight services between Singapore and Madurai was raised by K Shanmugam, Singapore Minister for Home Affairs and Law during his meeting in Singapore last week. A similar request was also raised by many members of the Tamil diaspora in Singapore,” Stalin added.