Kingfisher Airlines will operate a daily direct flight between Chennai and Mangalore from May 1. According to this report:

The daily flight IT 2441 will depart Bangalore at 9-40 am and arrive in Mangalore at 10-45 am. Flight 2443 to Chennai direct will depart from Mangalore at 11-15 am and arrive at Chennai at 1 am.

Flight 2444 from Chennai to Mangalore will depart at 1-30 pm and land in Mangalore at 3-15 pm. Flight 2442 from Mangalore to Bangalore will depart at 5-05 pm and reach Bangalore at 6-10 hrs. This late evening flight to Bangalore will be convenient a lot of professionals and businesspersons.

So far, a journey to Mangalore has been a time consuming process. If you take the train, patience runs real slim when you realize that after an early evening boarding, all you’ve managed to achieve is a long stop at Kasergod the next morning. The prospect of several more hours of chugging is never pleasing when you are trying to squeeze the maximum out of a three day trip (sounds alarmingly like a rant, doesn’t it? you bet!) It will be interesting to see the ticket pricing that Kingfisher will set for this sector.