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Both Indian cities are geographically and culturally diverse. Chennai has a good and well-structured aviation industry manufacturing aircraft for other Indian states. Chennai people prefer to travel by trains to religious cities deep south. The main purpose of air travel between these two cities occurs due to tourism. People from Chennai travel to Kolkota for the sole purpose of visiting the ethnic heritage sites of Kolkota. The moderate standard of living makes Kolkota the ideal tourist destination for the budgeted Chennai tourist. On a smaller scale, medical and cinema students also travel to Kolkota namely during the peak months of festivities i.e. Dusshera and Diwali.

Usually, the flights are occupied by tourists, students, job-seekers and IT personnel. A survey graphically divided the human traffic aboard these flights as: 75% tourists - 10% students - 5% job-seekers and the remainder as IT and MNC workers. The purposes of travel can be broken down as:

• Academics
• To attend and seek job s in fields of energy manufacturing, media, theatre and art
• For social causes of working in charitable organizations
• For contributing to wildlife preservation causes

The flights usually run on domestic route. The domestic airfare from Chennai to Kolkota is affordable. These domestic passenger carriers are service planes carrying students and tourists. The cuisine offered on these flights is basically south-Indian in nature with a choice for non vegetarian dishes. Domestic flights are usually available for online booking. Ticket payment has to be made well before in advance. If done so, the ticket money is refundable on cancellation. These flights run almost every day with more service flights scheduled during the weekends. In order to encourage air travel by Chennai locals, airfare from Chennai to Kolkota has been drastically slashed for MNC personnel and students. These discounted rates are generally made available on the production of identification by the passenger at the ticket counter. In 2006, the Chennai government willfully reduced the number of domestic passenger aircraft to Kolkota. This was done keeping in mind the mindset of Chennai resident. Chennai people are prone to travel south by train. They seldom board planes and travel outside south India. But, special airline tour package deals are being offered to tourists to fly to Kolkota. The customer service aboard these aircraft has also been vastly improved. Domestic passenger flights from Chennai to Kolkota fly only at specified times i.e. only during the mornings. These flights run four days a week.

Flight to Kolkata