Seaplane service is a not a so happening talk of the town for high-heels here in metropolitan cities. But for the residents of island state of India (Andaman and Nicobar) is one of the routes to their hotels, especially for the ones who is well-suited and booted and wants to make an appearance like James Bond. Though, that is not the latest piece of news here, but instead the citizens of Mumbai now too can avail that service for flying to their very private city of Aamby Valley, located near Lonavala. The drive of Mumbai to Aamby Valley is of 120kms, which is now slated to be shortened to 30 minutes with the three-seater Cessna seaplane.
The one-way journey will pinch the customers as hard as Rs. 5,000. The service is slated to start from 10th March 2014.
However, this sort of service looks more profitable for those who visit this hill station city for the golfing purpose. Hence, the said amount of half grand is surely not going to bother them a lot.
It seems that Sahara Group built city is in the need of some immediate access to the outer world, where such sorts of services are going to make ample of differences for them in the present scenario.
“We will begin commercial launch of the service on March 10. Bookings can be made on our website and will begin on the same day. It will be a daily charter service between Juhu airport and Aamby Valley,” said Siddharth Verma, director and co-founder of MEHAIR. It can be noted that the plane has been given permission to fly between 8 am and 4 pm every day, depending upon the demand.
Aamby Valley has a runway too, but the seaplane will be made to land in the lake of the city.
On a comparative note, the private jet journey from Mumbai to the Aamby Valley costs Rs. 24,000-25,000 inclusive of fuel, landing and other costs. The to and fro journey by a hired cab service costs as much as Rs. 4,000. The Volvo bus service goes that same distance for Rs. 800; and if one has a car the petrol costs fetches the line of expense to a minimum of Rs. 600-700. Hence, the seaplane is no doubt the most expensive way to go from Mumbai to Aamby Valley in Lonavala, but it is the most time saving option as well.
Hope so, this is one of the best efforts taken by the personnel of Maritime Energy Heli Air Services (MEHAIR), otherwise the government of Maharashtra looks in no mood taking the toil of transportation to sea which is lying unexplored to a large, rather making provisions of widening the bottlenecked roads which looks unconvincing to a lot in terms of money pumped and utility to be extracted.
