Malaysian budget airline AirAsia is most likely to start its flight operations from Jayaprakash Narayan International Airport here in July. It will operate two flights on Delhi-Patna-Delhi route from July following a final nod from the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
In fact, different airlines have made proposals to operate total 32 flights from Patna airport under the summer schedule. Twenty flights operate from Patna airport at present under the winter schedule, which is likely to end by February 15.
Patna airport director Rajendra Singh Lahauria told TOI on Friday, “AirAsia has submitted a schedule to the DGCA for operating two flights between Delhi and Patna from July. The first flight will land here at 8:30am and the second at 8:30pm.”
AirAsia apart, four other airlines operating from Patna airport — Air India, IndiGo, GoAir and Jet Airways — have also sought permission to increase their number of flights from Patna in July.
As flights are mostly not allowed to land at the city airport before 10am due to foggy conditions normally from first week of November, most airlines had cancelled or rescheduled their morning flights and added in the afternoon under their winter schedule, which came into effect from December.
IndiGo sources said the total number of flights has been proposed to increase from 11 to 14 from February 16 under their summer schedule. Its seven flights would operate on Patna-Delhi route.
GoAir has also proposed to increase the number of flights from Patna from five to eight. Also, both Air India and Jet Airways have proposed to increase the number of flights from 2 to 4.
Patna airport has witnessed a steep surge in aircraft traffic over the past few years as it has increased from 10 flights in 2010 to 20 at present. Altogether 26 flights were operating from the city airport last summer.
The rise in number of flights has been attributed to the increase in passenger traffic. The passenger flow at the city airport increased from 14.5% in 2014-15 to 32.4% in 2015-16.
Efforts are also being made to expand the terminal building at the city airport with two-storey swanky building with six aerobridges in order to accommodate an expected traffic of 30 lakh passengers per annum. Union cabinet on Tuesday approved the transfer of 11.35 acres of land to Bihar government in exchange of equivalent land of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) at Anisabad. Airport director Lahauria said construction work is expected to commence from June this year.