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Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has yet again pressed for Centre’s permission for running international flights by carriers from the Biju Patnaik international airport in the city.
“The state government has written several letters enclosing copies of the requests from international carriers interested to start international flight operations from Bhubaneswar. But unfortunately, no decision has been taken by the ministry of civil aviation on this important issue. The failure to utilise the new terminal and the delay in the international flights from Bhubaneswar has not only adversely affected the economics of Airports Authority of India (AAI) but has also undermined the legitimate expectations of the people of Odisha”, Patnaik said in a letter to A Gajapathi Raju, minister for civil aviation. Patnaik has called for an early decision on starting international flights from the airport considering the industrial, commercial and tourist importance of Odisha. If necessary, an official level meeting of your officers and the officers of the state government along with the representatives of the interested carriers may be urgently convened to discuss the issue, he suggested. Last month, the state chief secretary G C Pati had written to V Somasundaran, secretary, ministry of civil aviation to provide provisional permission to flydubai to run flights from Bhubaneswar. Pati had also demanded operation of international flights by state owned carrier Air India.
Dubai-based flydubai proposed to operate a daily flight of Boeing 737-800 with 174 seats- 12 business class and 162 economy class seats.
Both flydubai and Air Asia have submitted schedules to run commercial operations from Bhubaneswar. While flydubai will offer connectivity from Bhubaneswar to Dubai, Air Asia will run flights between Bhubaneswar and Kuala Lumpur.
Apart from flydubai and Air Asia, Air Arabia and SilkAir have evinced interest to start commercial operations.
To attract private airlines to operate from the Biju Patnaik airport and to run commercial flights to other places in the state, the state cabinet had approved slashing of the VAT (value added tax) rate on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) and aviation gasoline to five per cent from 20 per cent.
Despite this incentive, no international flight has taken off from the city airport yet. The airport which got the international tag in October 2013, belongs to AAI and is suitable for operation of Code ‘D’ aircraft of type B-767-400.
