ROURKELA: The trial landing of ATR-72 aircraft was successfully conducted by Alliance Air at Rourkela airport on Friday. The trial run comes ahead of the launch of commercial flight operation from Rourkela airport in view of the FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup scheduled to be held from January 13 to 29. The steel city will co-host the mega sporting event with Bhubaneswar.
The ATR-72 aircraft carrying two pilots arrived at Rourkela airport from Jharsuguda in the afternoon. On the day, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia officially announced that commercial flight operations from Rourkela will be launched on January 7. Taking to Twitter, Scindia described it as a New Year gift for Odisha and said it would prove to be a boon for the mining industry in Odisha and the marquee hockey event.
Transport and Commerce secretary Usha Padhee, who was previously joint secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, was present at the airport. Sports secretary R Vineel Krishna, Sundargarh collector Parag Harshad Gavali, director-in-charge of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) Atani Bhowmick and officials of Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Hockey India were also present.
The new development has ended all speculations over air connectively to Rourkela as the Civil Aviation Ministry since 2017 had denied commercial flight operation from the city on various technical grounds. The RSP-run Rourkela airport of SAIL is being managed by the AAI.
Earlier, Alliance Air had bagged the Rourkela-Bhubaneswar route in the bidding for Regional Connectivity Scheme UDAN. Sources said Big Charter has bagged the Rourkela-Kolkata route and the operation of 19-seater aircraft on the route is likely to start from February 2023.