Jharsuguda: Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Air India, is likely to commence flight services from the Veer Surendra Sai Airport in Jharsuguda to Kolkata from March 1, informed an official of the airport Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, a four-member team of the airline visited Veer Surendra Sai Airport to conduct a check for security and other operation factors at the airport.
The team inspected the infrastructure, security system and passenger amenities and convenyed a tentative date of March 1 for starting of flight operations.
While officials of Alliance Air did not commit to anything on-camera, additional Aviation Project Director Karunakaran said, “The tentative date is March 1. Alliance Air will operate the ATR-72 flights from Kolkata to Jharsuguda. This will be big bonus to the people here.”
Worth mentioning, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had recently granted approval to Alliance Air to operate flights from Jharsuguda to Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and Raipur.
The decision of the airline to provide services from the airport holds significance as flight operation at the airport was stopped around 15 days after its inauguration as Air Odisha airline suspended its flight services. The airport was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi September 22, last year.
Odisha’s second airport, Veer Surendra Sai Airport, is also expected to have regular flight operations of SpiceJet from March 31 onwards. Officials of SpiceJet, a low cost carrier, have already visited the airport and are set to operate on three routes- Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad, stated reports.
PNN