BHUBANESWAR: Air India’s subsidiary, Alliance Air, on Wednesday started its operations between Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) here and Veer Surendra Sai (VSS) Airport in Jharsuguda under ‘Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik’ (UDAN) scheme.The flight departed from BPIA in the morning and reached Jharsuguda at 10.45 am with 40 passengers. The return flight from Jharsuguda to Bhubaneswar departed at 12.05 pm with 55 passengers.
“The flight will operate daily between Jharsuguda and Bhubaneswar. The journey between the two destinations takes about an hour,” VSS Director S K Chauhan said.VSS officials said Alliance Air’s 72-seater aircraft (ATR 72) also started its operations between Raipur and Jharsuguda on Wednesday.“The flight between Raipur and Jharsuguda will operate daily. While the flight will arrive at Jharsuguda by 5.45 pm everyday, it will depart at 6.10 pm,” Chauhan said. With this, five flights are operating daily from VSS Airport.
During the maiden flight of Alliance Air between VSS and BPIA, Bargarh MP Suresh Pujari, State Health and Welfare Minister Naba Kishore Das, Brajrajnagar MLA Kishore Mohanty, Joint Secretary of Ministry of Civil Aviation Usha Padhee, Regional Executive Director (Eastern region), Airports Authority of India (AAI), S P Yadav and Chauhan were present.
“In the coming days, our efforts will be to make VSS the best airport of Odisha. We have requested the authorities to commence operations from Jharsuguda to two cities - Bengaluru and Mumbai,” Pujari said.
On March 31, SpiceJet started operating daily direct flights from VSS Airport to Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata. The airlines is flying 78-seater Bombardier Q400 series aircraft from VSS to the three metro cities. Sources said the airlines has planned to start operations from VSS to Mumbai and Bengaluru.SpiceJet has inducted some of Jet Airways aircraft. Jet Airways was supposed to start operations between Jharsuguda and Mumbai under UDAN. However, as the airlines is grounded, SpiceJet has inducted some of its aircraft.