Sambalpur: Regular flight services from Jharsuguda to Bangalore have been suspended for some time now with no announcement as to when resumption will take place. This development has turned into a huge hardship for the fliers.
Flight services from the Veer Surendra Sai Airport here to Bangalore had started September 22, 2018. However, services were indefinitely suspended August 20, 2022. Since then there has not been any indication when services will resume again.
There was some hope for regular fliers when authorities announced that flights to Bangalore will resume July 10 and SpiceJet will also soon launch services to Chennai. However, nothing has materialised so far. A couple of days back, the authorities had again said that flights to Bangalore will resume July 19. However, the indications are that it will not happen so.
This is because tickets for the Jharsuguda-Bangalore flights are not available on any website. Travel agencies are also in the dark about resumption of flights to Bangalore and hence are not accepting any bookings.
The only good news however, is that flights from the airport here to Delhi is still operating. Similarly, a flight from Kolkata to Bhubaneswar via Jharsuguda continues to function. The suspension of flight services to Bangalore is causing immense hardships to both professionals and students residing in western Odisha. A large number of people are working in Bangalore which is known as the IT hub of the country.
Similarly, there are a number of students who regularly travel to Bangalore to pursue their academic goals. For them now, the options are either to travel by train to Bhubaneswar and then fly to their destination. Some of the youths working as software engineers in various private firms in Bangalore said that the people want the flight services to resume.
They said that airline companies should start flights to other parts of India from this city. “Now there are only flights to Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata. If flights to other parts of India are introduced, there will not be any shortage of passengers,” said a professional who works in Bangalore.
Director of Veer Surendra Sai Airport, Sandip Kumar Tiwari meanwhile informed that Spicejet will soon connect Jharsuguda to Vishakhapatnam, Bangalore and Chennai. Four days in a week a flight will operate on the Kolkata-JharsugudaVishakhapatnam-Bangalore route and on the three other days the flight will terminate in Chennai.
However, Tiwari could not ascertain the exact date on which the resumption of the flights will take place. He added that bookings will start only after higher authorities give the go ahead. Till then the fliers will have to remain in the dark.
PNN