India-Maldives row: Alliance Air starts additional flights to Lakshadweep

Amid the ongoing India-Maldives row, Alliance Air the only airline that operates to Lakshadweep has started additional flights.

Due to a surge in the number of passengers willing to visit Lakshadweep, Alliance Air, the only Indian airline that operates to Lakshadweep, has started additional flights Kochi-Agatti-Kochi. A senior official of Alliance Air informed that the additional flights will operate two days a week i.e on Sunday and Wednesday.

Alliance air, the only airline that runs in Lakshadweep, runs flights between Kochi in Kerala and Agatti island, which has a regional airport serving Lakshadweep.

The airlines operate 70-seater aircraft to the island daily. It is running in full capacity and all tickets till March have been sold out, an official of the airline informed.

"We are getting lots of queries on phone and social media regarding tickets. Following to the huge demand for tickets, an additional flight has been added to the route. If required frequency of the flight will be increased," the official said.

Recently in an Annual General Meeting, Ajay Singh, CEO of SpiceJet also informed that the airline have exclusive rights under Refional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) for Lakshadweep and that they will soon launch flights to Lakshadweep.

However, travel portals have reported that they are getting a record number of queries for Lakshadweep.

India's smallest Union Territory, Lakshadweep came into the spotlight after Prime Minister Modi shared delightful images from his visit to the Union Territory on January 22 and called for harnessing beach tourism in the island cluster.

However, in a social media post that was deleted later, Maldivian Deputy Minister of Youth Empowerment, Mariyam Shiuna, made a mocking and disrespectful reference to PM Modi's visit to the Indian island cluster.

Amid an outpouring of anger on social media over the disparaging references to PM Modi, with #BoycottMaldives a top trend across online forums, leading faces from the Indian film industry as well as top celebrities came out in support of the call to promote beach tourism in Lakshadweep.