I used to go from Birmingham to Amritsar by foot, but it was a very slow walk!

Birmingham International Airport (BIA) has celebrated the launch of a new non-stop long haul charter service with specialist tour operator, Midland Airways. Travellers are now able to fly direct to Amritsar, the City of the Golden Temple, from Birmingham each Friday. This service will increase to two flights per week before the end of the month and will see a third weekly departure in early December.

The flights are operated by a new airline to Birmingham, Slovak Airlines, using a 215 seater 767-200 aircraft. Although the service is operated as a charter flight, passengers have a choice of two classes – economy (203 seats) and first class (12 seats). Prices start from GBP299 return.

Currently, the weekly service departs from Birmingham each Friday at 21:00, arriving the next morning into Amritsar Airport at 09:30. The return flight leaves Amritsar on Sunday at 13:30 and arrives into Birmingham at 20:00 the same evening. These flight times will change as new frequencies are added.

[FYI: The original Flying Sikh was Milkha Singh, “the only Indian to have broken an Olympic record” (unfortunately, he broke the record in the 400m preliminaries, and then came in 4th in a photo finish in the 1960 Rome Olympics.)]