BHUBANESWAR: The Central government has cancelled the agreement with Air Odisha for operating flights at Veer Surendra Sai (VSS) Airport in Jharsuguda and six other airports in the country under Udey Desh ka Aam Nagarik (UDAN) scheme for failing to undertake 70 per cent flight operations in the last three months.
Veer Surendra Sai (VSS) Airport Director SK Chauhan told The Express that agreement with Air Odisha was cancelled and the scheduled airlines will now be debarred from operating under the UDAN scheme in Jharsuguda, Visakhapatnam, Raipur, Bilaspur, Ambikapur, Raigarh and Jagdalpur airports.
“The agreement was cancelled as Air Odisha failed to operate minimum 70 per cent of the scheduled flights in these airports in the last three months,” Chauhan said. VSS officials said the decision to award the contract to any other airlines for operating from the airport under the UDAN scheme will be taken during a meeting which to be held in January.
Sources said the decision to award the contract to an airlines for operating from Jharsuguda Airport under UDAN will be taken during the third round of bidding by the Ministry of Civil Aviation in January, 2019. “We are hopeful that flight operations under UDAN will resume from February, 2019,” an official of VSS Airport said.
Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) Director and VSS Airport mentor Suresh Chandra Hota said the Jharsuguda Airport was fully capable of handling regular operations. The airlines had some internal problems for which it failed to run the operations regularly, he added. TNIE had reported on November 22 that Air Odisha had ignored the warning of Ministry of Civil Aviation for resuming the services at VSS Airport. Ministry of Civil Aviation had directed Air Odisha, which was selected as the scheduled airlines to operate flights from Jharsuguda to Bhubaneswar, Ranchi and Raipur under UDAN scheme, on October 24 to resume the operations at VSS Airport soon.
The Ministry had cautioned the airlines of cancelling the award for operating flights on the routes, which would be put up for fresh bidding, if it fails to resume the services soon. Similarly, VSS Airport officials had also issued a letter to Air Odisha and asked it to resume the operations immediately, but to no avail.
Meanwhile, Air Odisha officials said as per the tender under UDAN scheme, the airlines was supposed to operate flights from Rourkela airport, Jeypore airport, Utkela airstrip and some airports in Chhattisgarh. As these airports were yet to open, the carrier was able to carry out only 50 per cent of its operation capacity.