jose k joseph
post news network
Bhubaneswar, August 26: Bringing cheer to the flyers, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has allowed 24-hour operations at Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) from September 1.
“This is a great achievement. The night operation will increase job opportunities. This will also help us to have more flights,” said BPIA director R Mahalingam.
Apart from night operations, the BPIA will also have more direct flights to Kolkata and Delhi.
“IndiGo has decided to start more direct flights to Kolkata and Delhi. The first two additional flights from Bhubaneswar to Kolkata and Delhi will be in evening. These flights will start from September 12. The other two additional flights to Delhi and Kolkata will be in the early morning and start from October 1. These flights from Kolkata and Delhi will reach BPIA in the night and take off for Delhi and Kolkata early morning,” added Mahalingam.
With the approval of these new flights, BPIA can be technically regarded as a base flights system (in which the aircraft will be parked at the airport during the night) operation airport.
At present, IndiGo is the only airline that offers a direct flight to and from Kolkata. The Kolkata flights of Vistara and Air India are via Delhi.
While Vistara operates a flight to Delhi in the morning, there is no service on Saturdays and Sundays.
In the weekends, IndiGo operates a direct flight to Delhi in the morning.
Flyers claim that the current schedule is extremely inconvenient and have applauded AAI’s decision.
“This is one of the long pending demands of the flyers of city airport. We appreciate the initiative and we need more direct flights to other metros too,” said Kalinga Air Travellers Association (KATA) convener Biswajit Mohanty.
The early morning operations will also give a big boost to cargo operations at BPIA.
