Mangalore : The first flight of the season took off from Mangalore International Airport after the Mangalore-Kuwait Air India operations finally resumed on Monday October 27 at 7.30 am.

It is learnt that Mangalore South MLA J R Lobo, Karnataka minister Roshan Baig, MLC Ivan D’Souza and MP Nalin Kumar Kateel had put in continuous efforts to reintroduce the Mangalore-Kuwait flight service.

Lobo who boarded the flight to Kuwait along with his wife, said the media that Mangalore-Kuwait flight service had been stopped for almost for a year and when this issue was raised in the Vidhana Sabha eight months back, our state government held talks with the central government and the reply was that that Mangalore was very poor in financial investments hence the reintroduction of the Mangalore-Kuwait flight service was not possible.

He also said that they had also made an effort to explain the problems with Air India director and managing director after meeting him in July 2014. In reply union minister of state for civil aviation G M Siddeshwar assured to look into our problem and would resume the flight service and the result of meeting him was positive. After a long struggle flight service has been started from city and further the passengers must make use of it to gain profits in return and keep the flight operations alive.

Former MLA Vijay Kumar Shetty congratulated J R Lobo and said that J R Lobo has put all his efforts into restarting the flight operation and hence we must not stop this service anymore in future.

The authorities distributed sweets among the guests and to the passengers in celebration.

Mangalore Air India manager Nagesh Shetty, deputy mayor Kavitha Vasu, Denis D’Silva, T K Sudhir and others were also present.

The flight will operate from Mangalore to Kuwait on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, departing from Mangalore at 7.30 am and reaching Kuwait via Bahrain at 11.15 am (local time).