Alliance Air has begun linking Kolkata directly with cities in Madhya Pradesh. The Kolkata-Jabalpur service started on 8 August and operates three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. A related service connecting Kolkata with Rewa and Bhopal, together with links involving Patna, followed in the same window. The flights are operated with ATR-72 aircraft and form part of a broader push that also includes new intra-state and inter-state routes flagged off from Bhopal with state support.
These are not routes that feed the usual national hubs. They create lateral connections between eastern and central India that previously required a detour through Delhi, Mumbai or another major metro. A passenger travelling between Kolkata and Jabalpur or between Kolkata and Bhopal no longer has to route every journey through one of the four dominant hubs. That shift is the real test for the next phase of regional connectivity policy.
India’s early UDAN years concentrated on connecting underserved airports to the existing metro network. The harder and more valuable step is building traffic between secondary cities themselves so that regional economies can trade, travel and interact without first funnelling everything into Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru or Hyderabad. Alliance Air’s Kolkata-Madhya Pradesh services offer a practical experiment in whether such east-central corridors can sustain themselves with modest frequencies, ATR capacity and targeted viability support from the state.
Load factors, yield and the willingness of passengers to switch from multi-stop itineraries will decide whether the experiment succeeds. If the flights hold, they demonstrate that regional India can develop its own network geometry rather than remaining a collection of spokes attached to a handful of hubs. If they struggle, they will underline how difficult it remains to generate consistent demand on thin lateral routes even when policy and state funding are aligned. Either outcome will matter for the design of the next generation of regional air connectivity programmes.