ROURKELA: Rourkela’s commercial air connectivity was restored on Friday after six months of disruption, with the launch of a nine-seater aircraft on the Rourkela–Bhubaneswar route.
The service has been introduced as a compensatory measure, supported by the state government. IndiaOne Air, a regional airline focused on connecting Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities with metropolitan hubs under the UDAN scheme, operated its maiden flight from Rourkela on Friday afternoon. IndiaOne Air chief executive officer Prem Kumar Garg said the airline, now three years old, operates around three to four small aircraft from Bhubaneswar covering intra and inter-state routes of up to 500 km. He added that the state government is currently providing financial support for the Rourkela–Bhubaneswar service and that the airline is willing to begin flights on the Rourkela–Kolkata route, if requested by the government.
The airline is deploying a nine-seater Cessna 208 Caravan that already connects Bhubaneswar, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Cooch Behar, Jeypore, Utkela, Raipur and Visakhapatnam. Alliance Air, which previously operated an ATR-72 aircraft on the Rourkela–Bhubaneswar and Rourkela–Kolkata routes, had abruptly suspended services in mid-July due to internal operational issues.
In October, the state government wrote to the Civil Aviation ministry, seeking a complete takeover of the Rourkela Airport from SAIL, by the Airports Authority of India. During his visit to Rourkela on November 19, Union Steel minister HD Kumaraswamy stated he had directed the SAIL chairman to coordinate with the Civil Aviation ministry, adding that the ministry was interested in operating the airport for public use.