Flights Between Amritsar and Toronto to Open from April 6th

The Italian airline Neos Air will begin flights connecting Amritsar with Toronto in Canada and New York in the United States via its hub at Milan Malpensa Airport on April 6, 2023, giving the Punjabi diaspora in North America a cause for celebration. The announcement of this new one-stop seamless connectivity between Toronto and Amritsar via Milan, which will also connect Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport, Amritsar with New York, was shared by Sameep Singh Gumtala, Global Convener of the FlyAmritsar Initiative, an advocacy group pushing for direct flights to Amritsar.

According to Gumtala, scheduled service between Milan Malpensa and Amritsar began by Neos Air in the middle of December 2022. In September 2021, the airline launched charter services between Italy and Amritsar, marking the beginning of operations to Amritsar during the epidemic. Due to Spicejet’s operating of charter flights from Amritsar to Milan Bergamo and Rome during Covid periods, the Indian airline was granted permission to begin regular flights to both Italian airports in November of last year. Amritsar is the only airport in India that is currently connected with three airports in Italy thanks to direct flights offered by both Indian and Italian airlines.

Neos has posted the booking schedule for the new trip on its website. Starting on April 6th, the airline will fly one-weekly flights to both Toronto and New York. Every Thursday at 3:15 a.m., flight No. 3249 will depart from Amritsar and arrive at Milan Malpensa airport at 8:20 a.m.
Flight NO4348 will depart Milan at 12:30 and arrive in Toronto at 3 pm after a roughly 4hr 10m layover.
Every Thursday at 5 p.m., Neos flight NO4349 will depart from Toronto Pearson Airport and arrive in Milan at 6:50 a.m. the following day. Flight NO5248 will leave Milan at 10 a.m. and arrive in Amritsar at 9:15 p.m. on the same day, on Friday.

This allows for a 3hr 10m transit time through Milan. Toronto to Amritsar will take 18 hours and 45 minutes, while Amritsar to Toronto will take 21 hours and 15 minutes. On these routes, the airline will fly a wide-bodied Boeing 787 Dreamliner with 359 seats. As flights increase, it is anticipated that the airline will increase the number of days each week.

Co-convener of the Initiative Mohit Dhanju, who is based in Surrey, British Columbia, introduced a parliamentary petition in the House of Commons in January 2022. Almost 19000 Canadians signed this petition in less than a month. Brad Vis, a member of parliament from Canada, sponsored and presented this in order to raise the demand. In May 2022, visiting Indian Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia and Canadian Transport Minister Omar Alghabra discussed the problem.

According to the FlyAmritsar Initiative, a civil society organisation that promotes development and direct flights from the Amritsar International Airport, thousands of Punjabi students move to Canada each year to pursue higher education, while thousands of immigrants who have already made their homes in Canada travel to Punjab on a yearly basis.

Prabhnoor Kaur