Commercial Flights to start Soon from Rourkela

After the inspection of Rourkela Aerodrome, The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security DG, Usha Padhee on Monday informed that flight operations from Rourkela Airport will begin soon.

A team of Civil Aviation Ministry led by Usha Padhee visited the aerodrome in Rourkela and a high level meeting was followed by that which was held at the airport and was also attended by the CEO if Rourkela Steel Plant and representatives of various private airlines, Rourkela District Administration, senior officials of the Airport Authority of India and Secretary of Odisha Transport Department.

After the meeting, Padhee further informed that the work at the Airport will be targeted to complete within next 18 months.

Speaking further about this, Odisha Transport Secretary(Madhsudhan Padhi) informed "The focus in the meeting was on acquiring 2C license for the Rourkela Airport within six to eight months. A short term action plan and a long term master plan to achieve the target was also discussed."

Notably, Class II airports are those airports that serve scheduled operations of small air carrier aircraft and unscheduled operations of large air carrier aircraft. Class II airports are not permitted to serve scheduled large air carrier operations.

Despite being included under UDAN scheme of the Central Government, the operation of flight services from Rourkela Airport has not yet been possible due to some technical issues.

Developed by the Airport Authority of India (AAI) for operation under Regional Connectivity Scheme – Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagarik (RCS-UDAN), the airport was initially planned for 19-seater aircraft. Now, ATR 72 aircraft has been allowed to operate following licence upgradation and further development of Rourkela airport.

Meanwhile, the State government is giving renewed thrust to restore air connectivity to Rourkela after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced the Steel City as the second venue to host the Men’s Hockey World Cup in January, 2023.

To be noted, Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has previously replied to letter of Delhi RS Member Sanjay Singh who had written to Puri for operation of 70-seater aircraft from Rourkela in February last year, that 41 acre of land is to be alienated by SAIL to meet licensing requirements to cater to visual flight rule (VFR) operations of ATR-72 type aircraft. Work on upgradation of the airport is in progress.  Incidentally, after the joint inspection carried out under the leadership of State Commerce and Transport Principal Secretary Madhusudan Padhi, it was decided to apply for upgradation of the airport’s licence to ARC 2C VFR from ARC 2B and take up necessary infrastructure augmentation to allow operation of 42-seater aircraft.

He had further informed “The ECS routes from Rourkela to Bhubaneswar and Raipur with ATR-72 type aircraft have been awarded to Alliance Air and Turbo Aviation. However, the operations are yet to commence due to lack of readiness of Rourkela airport for Code 3C operations”