IANS/Mumbai

Commercial seaplane services will start between Mumbai and Lonavala’s Aamby Valley hill station from today, with the 100km-long flight taking 25-28 minutes, or one-fourth of the time taken by road, an official said.
“Initially, one flight will be operated daily by a four-seater aircraft and depending on the response, the services will be increased,” Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) managing director Jagdish Patil said.
The flights will be operated by the Mumbai-based Maritime Energy Heli Air Services Pvt Ltd (MEHAIR) with a four-seater Cessna 206 Amphibian. A nine-seater Cessna 208 Amphibian will be deployed if the demand increases.
The test flights were completed last December when the amphibians smoothly landed and took off from the Aamby Valley Lake.
Later, MEHAIR plans to launch other routes, including Mumbai (Juhu) to Mula Dam which is close to the pilgrimage centres of Shirdi, Shani-Shingnapur and Trimbakeshwar in Ahmednagar district, and to Mahabaleshwar and other major destinations which have no air connectivity, the official said.
For this, the MTDC is collaborating with the irrigation ministry to identify various lakes, rivers and around 50 dams as well as other big and small water bodies for starting seaplane flights across the state.
On its part, the MEHAIR plans to expand to all coastal areas which have beaches and landlocked states with lakes, rivers or dams for amphibian flight operations.
The MTDC has plans to start a seaplane service linking the suburbs with south Mumbai - in a mere 5-10 minutes - but the proposal is awaiting central clearances.
A MEHAIR official said a seaplane is a fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off or landing on water, without the need for an airstrip. Another category of amphibian aircraft can also take off from and land at regular airfields.







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