Travellers between Varanasi and Sharjah will get a second flight from 25 October, when Air India Express adds a four-days-a-week midday service and moves its existing daily flight from late night to early evening. Bookings for the new timings are already open on the airline's website.
The change comes with the start of the winter schedule. Airlines across India revise their timetables on the last Sunday of October each year, and this year that falls on 25 October. The winter timetable then runs until the end of March, so the new slots at Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport in Babatpur are set to hold through the coming months.
Under the airline's new schedule, the daily flight IX 184 will leave Sharjah at 12.50 pm Indian time and land in Varanasi at 4.45 pm. The same aircraft will then fly back as IX 183, leaving Varanasi at 6.15 pm every day.
That is a big shift for regular flyers. At present IX 183 departs Varanasi at 9.05 pm and reaches Sharjah close to midnight local time, which means a late drive to the airport and a night arrival in the Gulf. Under the new plan, the same daily passenger would be in Sharjah by late evening.
The second service is new. Flight IX 248 is scheduled to leave Sharjah at 7.15 am and reach Varanasi at 11.15 am, and the aircraft will turn around as IX 247, departing Varanasi at 12.15 pm. It will operate on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Since 25 October is a Sunday, the first rotation of this flight is due on the very day the winter schedule begins.
Fares around the launch date are high. When checked on Monday, festive-season fares on the airline site were above Rs 20,000 for a one-way Varanasi-Sharjah seat on 25 October. The airline's fare calendar for the rest of October showed one-way prices ranging from roughly Rs 15,000 to about Rs 24,000, depending on the day. Fares on the route change often, so the figures are only a snapshot.
For Purvanchal, the Sharjah route is not a tourist novelty. Many families in Varanasi, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Azamgarh, Mau and Ballia have members working in the UAE and other Gulf countries, and the direct flight saves them a road or rail trip to Lucknow or Delhi to catch an international connection. A daytime arrival in Varanasi also helps those who still have a long road journey home after landing.
The evening departure may suit some passengers better than others. Workers flying back after a holiday can now reach the airport in daylight, but anyone who had planned a full working day in the city before a night flight will have less time on the ground. With two departures on four days of the week, passengers on those days will at least be able to choose between a lunch-time and an evening flight.
Passengers who booked tickets for dates on or after 25 October before the new timings were published should check their booking reference on the Air India Express website or with their agent. Airlines usually notify customers of schedule changes by SMS or email, but messages can be missed, and a flight that once left at 9 pm will now be gone nearly three hours earlier.
Time at the terminal matters too. Babatpur held a drone and air traffic control mock drill by the CISF and ATS last month, and international passengers are generally advised to report about three hours before departure. In the winter months, early fog and mist also return to the airport, as seen in recent morning visibility reports from Babatpur, though a midday and an evening slot are less likely to be hit than dawn flights.
For those not flying, the festival rush is visible on the ground as well, with Indian Railways running festival special trains from Varanasi to Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. For Gulf-bound families, though, the bigger change this season is in the sky: from 25 October, Varanasi will have two direct flights to Sharjah on four days of every week.
