The lone FLY91 flight from Jalgaon to Pune takes just over an hour to complete its journey. Manas Kulkarni, a progressive agriculturist who grows a range of crops, including cotton, bananas, pigeon pea (toor dal), wheat, maize, gram and onion in his fields in Vivare Bk village, in Jalgaon’s Raver taluka, has taken that flight 50 times so far. The regional airline’s staff honoured the 54-year-old man at Jalgaon airport as he celebrated his 50th flight milestone.

Ahead of his 50th trip, FLY91 staff marked the moment with a touch of ceremony as a mark of gratitude to the loyal and frequent flyer, much to Kulkarni’s surprise and joy. “This is my 50th flight with FLY91. I’m looking forward to it,” he said before takeoff from the Jalgaon airport.

Kulkarni’s connection to Pune is personal, not professional. His wife and son moved there in 2013 for the boy’s schooling. The son is now a mechanical engineer headed to Germany. Kulkarni stayed behind to manage the farm, focusing on growing his short-, medium-, and long-duration crops, while also keeping in touch with his family by flying back periodically. “Earlier, travelling to be with them used to take me around 12–13 hours. But now, thanks to FLY91, that journey takes just about 1 hour and 15 minutes,” he said.

Kulkarni began flying regularly only after FLY91 started daily operations between Jalgaon and Pune earlier this year. The pure play regional airline headquartered in Goa, which focuses on connecting underserved regional airports, has seen repeat flyers like Kulkarni as an early sign that connectivity to tier 2 and 3 domestic destinations as envisaged under the Union Civil Aviation Ministry’s Regional Connectivity Scheme, Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (RCS-UDAN) is paying off.

“Every route we open is meant to make everyday travel less complicated for passengers from underserved destinations like Mr Kulkarni. FLY91 is committed to giving preference to regional routes to ease air connectivity to tier two and tier three destinations,” according to Manoj Chacko, CEO and MD of FLY91.

At the end of his 50th flight, Kulkarni even came up with a personal tagline for the airline: “‘FLY91, Connecting Families.’ That’s how I truly feel,” Kulkarni said.

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