Air India today became the first airline to start commercial operations from recently opened Kazi Nazrul Islam Airport, at Durgapur, 170 kms from here, with a flight connecting Kolkata to Durgapur and back.
The inaugural flight was operated by Alliance Air, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Air India, with a 48-seater ATR-42 aircraft.
The flight will operate on the sector daily except Fridays.
The flight will save passengers from Durgapur the time- consuming road journey to Kolkata and provide them air connectivity to Air India's Delhi and Mumbai flights the same evening, and accelerate growth in the region, said a release issued by the airlines.
The 650-acre Kazi Nazrul Islam Airport, developed by Bengal Aerotropolis Projects Ltd (BAPL), is India's first operational private Greenfield airport under the country's Greenfield Airport Policy, it said.
Flights are operated mostly to tier-2 and tier-3 cities, or those which link these cities to the metro hubs, it said.
