Goa Tourism accords royal welcome to season’s first direct flight from London

Panjim: The first direct flight (MT2638) from London (Manchester) to Goa for the season 2016-17 arrived on Tuesday night with 311 passengers on board who received a royal welcome at the Goa International Airport, Dabolim.


Thomas Cook Airlines will be operating six flights a week to Goa from London, three each from Manchester and Gatwick.

On arrival, the passengers were given Goa Tourism souvenirs, flowers and Goan music from a live brass band.

Data from the Goa airport indicates that 80 per cent of the passengers who arrived from Manchester last night availed of the Electronic Tourist Visa (ETV) facility.

Freedom Holidays Pvt. Ltd, the authorized representative of Thomas Cook Airlines will be overseeing all operational aspects at the Goa airport.

A team of officials from the Goa Tourism Development Corporation and Tourism Department- Armando Duarte, Dy. GM, GTDC Deepak Narvekar, PRO, GTDC, Thelma Moses, Executive to MD, GTDC, Jasmine Fernandes, ATO, Dept. of Tourism received the passengers at the Goa airport.

Minister for Tourism, Mr. Dilip Parulekar said, “We are very happy that the tourism season 2016-17 has commenced with flying colours. We are very delighted that the numbers of direct flights from London to Goa are increasing and each flight will bring around 325 passengers. The UK market is a very important one for us and we are also going to impress on this at the upcoming WTM 2016 in London.”

Chairman and Managing Director of Freedom Holidays Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Martin Joseph said, “ We are very thankful to Goa Tourism for extending a warm welcome to our guests from UK and supporting all our endeavours in increasing connectivity between London and Goa.”

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