Helicopter Taxi to Sabarimala - First Trip on November 24

An helicopter taxi would be carrying pilgrims to the famous Hindu pilgrimage center Sabarimala and the first helicopter taxi is scheduled to make its first trip on November 24th. The helicopter carrying Sabarimala Pilgrims will take off from the Nedumbasserry airport and land in Nilakkal.

The first trip will comprise of three pilgrims from Andhra Pradesh and the helicopter service is provided by Bharathi Airways. The company Bharati Airways gets the helicopters from a Bangalore based firm named GMR Aviations.  Bharati Airways claims that they are getting a large number of enquiries mainly from  Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and 6 bookings have been done so far.

The helicopter would be  six seater including the pilot and if the demand increases the seating capacity would be increased. The fare for the helicopter travel would be Rs 45,000 for a group of 5 and would take almost 30 minutes to travel from Nedumbassery to Nilakkal and the helicopter services would be there throughout the Mandala-Makaravilakku festival season.

So in the coming years, we can hope that the number of helicopter services goes up and that would be something new to those living near Sabarimala, as they can experience the hurling sound of helicopters going to and fro.