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G. Gurumurthy

Revised flight schedule may deal a big blow to Coimbatore flower trade.

COIMBATORE, March 31

INDIAN Airlines' new flight timing under the summer schedule, which takes effect from March 31, has landed scores of Coimbatore flower vendors in trouble.

The revised timing of the IC 657/658 Delhi-Mumbai-Coimbatore-Mumbai flight, it is expected, will hamper the city's flower exporters who will loose the ``ideal'' morning time-slot best suited to despatch their floral cargo to Mumbai — their key money spinning market.

The IA may also lose in the bargain as the changed schedule of the Coimbatore-Mumbai flight may turn a majority of the flower vendors away from the airlines. They currently provide IA business to the tune of Rs 12 lakh in freight each month for moving the loose flower to Mumbai.

According to the earlier schedule, the Kozhikode-Delhi daily flight operating via Coimbatore and Mumbai, arrived in Coimbatore at 0945 hrs and left at 1025 hrs, reaching Mumbai at 1215 hrs.

Coimbatore's flower vendors used this flight to reach their perishable cargo in time for the evening market at Mumbai.

Under the revised timings, this flight, an A-320, will leave Mumbai daily at 1140 hrs to arrive in Coimbatore at 1330 hrs. On the return trip, it would leave Coimbatore at 1425 hrs to reach Mumbai at 1615 hrs. This schedule will deprive the all-crucial ``forenoon'' reach to Mumbai, essential for the flower cargo to hit the evening market.

`The change in the flight timing will upset our business as we will not be able to use the afternoon flight to despatch flowers to Mumbai. The heat would also limit additional cargo loading, especially when passenger traffic picks up during the summer. "We will loose out," laments Mr Satish, a leading flower vendor and member of the Coimbatore Flower Merchants' Association, who regularly sends flower consignment through Indian Airlines here.

According to Mr Satish, Coimbatore's flower vendors fly an average of two to three tonnes of loose flowers daily to Mumbai on IA. The tonneage touches as much as 5 tonnes in the flush season. The bulk of the cargo from here comprises jasmine/sambac and an assortment of flowers grown in Mettupalayam, Karamadai and Periyanaickenpalayam in rural Coimbatore.

At least 20 major flower merchants regularly send their supplies to the Mumbai market.

With the IA's new timing threatening their business, the worried flower merchants are trying to mount pressure through their elected representatives and local ministers, to get the airline to revert to the original schedule so that they can retain their Mumbai business.

Some of the merchants are looking at the scope for diverting their flower consignments by road to Kochi airport, so that they can reach their produce to Mumbai before noon.

But the additional road freight they have to bear would make them uncompetitive, they fear.

"Eventually, if the new timings do not allow us to transport our flower cargo on an IA flight, flower prices in the local market would come crashing down, affecting the farmers,'' said Mr Satish.

However, the change in the timing of the Mumbai-Coimbatore-Mumbai flight seems to be helpful to business travellers to Coimbatore as it gives them almost a full day of business before they return to Mumbai by afternoon as per the revised time-table.

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IA schedule crushes Coimbatore flower trade

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