ROURKELA: Restoration of air connectivity to the steel city seems unlikely soon with operation of the only ATR-72 aircraft by Alliance Air coming to a halt and SAIL not going for fresh agreement with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for operation and management of its Rourkela airport.
While Rourkela lost air connectivity three months ago with abrupt and arbitrary withdrawal of the services by Alliance Air, the three-year tenure of the MoU between SAIL and AAI is ending this October.
The sudden disruption of flight service has come as a severe blow for the city at a time when a larger plan for upgradation and expansion of the Rourkela airport owned by Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) of SAIL is in the pipeline.
Alliance Air has not cited any specific reason yet and the only flight engineer of the AI Engineering Services Ltd at Rourkela was shifted to Kolkata on October 6 for one year. The airport with active commercial flight still has 10 employees of the AAI.
Alliance Air started operation between Rourkela and Bhubaneswar with a single ATR-72 aircraft in January 2023. Later, the Rourkela-Kolkata route was included under the Regional Connectivity Scheme-Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik (UDAN). Since then, there has been a consistent demand for full takeover of the Rourkela airport by AAI.
Reliable sources in SAIL said as the term of the second MoU is ending in October, the director-in-charge had a meeting with the officials concerned of the Odisha government in August. Later in September, the RSP urged the principal secretary, Commerce and Transport department to take steps for handing over the airport to AAI.
However, there is no clarity yet if the AAI would take ownership of the airport. In the event of that not happening, the Odisha government may have to get the airport’s ownership and operate it.
If sources are to be believed, the AAI is unwilling to own and operate the Rourkela airport in view of its much larger Jharsuguda airport at a distance of around 130 km.
After a meeting between Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi and Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram in February this year, the Commerce and Transport department had written to the AAI chairman about the government’s proposal to upgrade Rourkela airport suitable for 4C CAT 1 IFR operation, considering the growth of the city. The government had further urged the AAI to design a master plan and conduct an OLS survey. The expansion and upgradation proposal envisaged all-weather operations of big body aircrafts and the OLS survey was done in July.
Former general secretary of Steel Executives’ Federation of India Bimal Bisi said the state government should urgently rope in alternative airline operator and also initiate work on the plan to upgrade and expand Rourkela airport.
