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Air Italy to start operations from Amritsar

Bhisham Mansukhani - Mumbai

Air Italy has launched its North India operations from Amritsar to Verona, Italy, from November 30. The Boeing 757 with a capacity of 220 seats will fly every Wednesday.

According to Ambarish Ullal, operational manager, Lago Tourist SRL, which is a sub-agent of New World SRL, which holds a contract with Air Italy for its entire seat capacity in this segment, "I am currently working on package deals for Indians coming to Italy. These would be all inclusive packages and with tourism promotion efforts in both countries, we should achieve good load factors."

The Verona to Amritsar (round trip) would be priced at 700 Euros and Amritsar to Verona would cost about 500 Euros. "While Air Italy is a full service carrier, it is more affordable than other European carriers. So far, the North Indian community in Italy had no direct flight options as a result of which it would take them over 24 hours to come to India. It will now take them seven," said Ullal.

"Italy's tourism board, ENIT is helping us identifying tour operators that we can work with. There are issues pertaining to payments as we need travellers to make them a month in advance, but Indians do not want to pay until the visa comes and that is where the role of ENIT becomes important," mentioned Ullal. He is looking to bring atleast 3000 Italian tourists in the first year "Italians love India, the culture, and the alternative healing therapies. Furthermore, the fare is virtually half that of other European full service carriers that sell a round trip at 1500 Euros," said Ullal.