After Monorail, Mumbai Gets Commercial Seaplane Service; Now Fly To Aamby Valley Under 30 Minutes

Ever experienced a scenic flight on board a seaplane? No, you don’t have to shell out a fortune any more to charter a private seaplane and go flying. From today (February 24), commercial seaplane service is starting in Mumbai for the first time. And that’s another feather in the cap of the financial capital after the city rolled out the country’s first-ever monorail on February 1.

Initially, the seaplane service is connecting Mumbai to Aamby Valley hill station in Lonavala – a 100 km stretch – and the flight will take just 25-28 minutes or one-fourth of the time taken by a road trip. As of now, there will be just one flight a day and you only get a four-seater Cessna 206 amphibian. But the seaplane services will be scaled up if there is enough response. The flights will be operated by Mumbai-based Maritime Energy Heli Air Services (MEHAIR) and a nine-seater Cessna 208 amphibian will be deployed if the demand rises.

While a seaplane is capable of taking off or landing on water, without an airstrip, there is another variety that can also take off from regular airfields on land. Test flights for the current stretch took place in December last year and the amphibians landed and took off from the Aamby Valley Lake.

In June last year, Kerala launched the country’s first tourist seaplane service that connects the distant backwater destinations. Similar services are also available in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Mumbaikars, however, will have to wait some more for the intracity seaplane flights from Juhu to Girgaum Chowpatty. The Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC), along with MEHAIR, had planned it nearly two years ago. But the project got delayed as it was awaiting crucial clearances from several authorities. It has finally got the nod from the Ministry of Defence and has also obtained clearances from key agencies including the Coast Guard, the Navy, police, the urban development department, BMC, Mumbai Port Trust, the environment department and the Airports Authority of India.

But to implement this project, MTDC will require to build a floating jetty for ferrying passengers to and fro. It has already earmarked some 5,000 sq km, about 100-200m into the sea and next to H2O, the privately operated water sports complex. However, a High Court-appointed committee will have to give the go-ahead first before the Mumbai City Collector’s office can grant the land near the city’s coast.

Once the last leg of the project is cleared and the seaplane service is launched, the hour-long commute will come down to 5-7 minutes for a one-way fare of Rs 750-1,000.

MTDC and MEHAIR are also planning to operate several other routes with no air connectivity. In fact, MTDC has already started working with the irrigation ministry to identify suitable water bodies like dams, lakes and rivers for starting seaplane services across the state. The upcoming destinations could be Lonavala, Mahabaleshwar, Panchgani, Shirdi, Shani-Singnapur and Trimbakeshwar – most of them are either popular tourist attractions or noted pilgrimage sites. So fasten your seatbelt and be ready – these amphibians are all set to take you on a discovery flight of a lifetime – over land and water.

With input from Agencies.
Image: Thinkstock Photos/Getty Images