ROURKELA: CEO of Alliance Air Vineet Sood on Saturday assured to consider the demand of locals to change the timing of the flight from Rourkela to Bhubaneswar.Alliance Air had started regular flights between the steel city and state capital on January 12. At present, the aircraft arrives from Bhubaneswar and departs at 4.15 pm.
During Sood’s visit to the city, a delegation of the Rourkela Chamber of Commerce & industry (RCCI) led by its president Subrata Patnaik placed the demand for changing the timing of the flight. Patnaik said if the flight departs in the morning, people would be able to reach Bhubaneswar early and after finishing their work can return the same day. Sood was also urged to start operations between Rourkela and Kolkata.
Patnaik said a delegation of RCCI would request civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia to connect Rourkela to Kolkata by air. Sood said Rourkela airport is a Visual Flight Rules facility and an aircraft needs minimum of five km to land. He said Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), which manages the airport would be requested to equip the facility with Instrumental Landing System to enable landing at night, low visibility and adverse weather conditions.
The ATR-72 aircraft now operates from Kolkata to Jharsuguda and then to Bhubaneswar and Rourkela Sood said for morning flight schedule at Rourkela the entire routing has to be changed and Alliance Air would consider it. He said since another Selected Airline Operator (SAO) has been chosen under the RCS-UDAN for the Rourkela-Kolkata route, Alliance Air cannot operate on it.