ROURKELA: In a relief for travellers on Bhubaneswar-Rourkela-Kolkata route during the festive season, Alliance Air Aviation Ltd (AAAL) has reportedly arranged an alternate ATR-72 aircraft to prevent flight cancellations.
On Tuesday afternoon, the existing ATR-72 aircraft met with a minor mishap at Bhubaneswar airport during landing. The mishap rendered the aircraft unfit to fly for at least one month. Sources in Airports Authority of India (AAI) informed the tail of the aircraft from Rourkela hit one of the approach lights while landing in Bhubaneswar. While no passenger was hurt, the aircraft’s tail was damaged in the incident.
As the aircraft remains grounded at Bhubaneswar airport, a team of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has initiated investigation to ascertain the circumstances and reason of the incident and the extent of damage to the aircraft. Even after the damaged portion of the aircraft is repaired, it may take at least a month to resume flight services on the route after necessary clearance from DGCA.
While AAAL had officially announced cancellation of the flight on the route only for Wednesday, there were enough indications of more such cancellations. However, despite AAAL facing acute scarcity of ATR-72 aircraft it was forced to urgently draft an aircraft from another route to prevent flight cancellations during the festive season when all tickets are already booked.
A frequent flier and former general secretary of Steel Executives’ Federation of India (SEFI) Bimal Kumar Bisi on Tuesday sent an urgent request to acting CEO of AAAL Ram Babu to arrange an alternate aircraft to avoid cancellation of flight for a long period citing the festive season.
Bisi on the day quoting the CEO of AAAL said another ATR-72 type aircraft has been drafted from a different sector to cater to the need of the Bhubaneswar-Rourkela-Kolkata sector. He said the immediate intervention of Union Tribal Affairs minister Jual Oram was crucial.
What’s the damage?
The tail of the existing ATR-72 hit an approach light at Bhubaneswar airport while landing
It will take at least a month for the aircraft to resume operations on the route