Odisha slashes landing charges to boost air connectivity

Landing charges have been slashed from Rs 5,000 to Rs 400

In its effort to boost intra state air connectivity, the Odisha government has drastically cut landing and night parking charges for private aircraft operators to boost air services within the state.

The landing charges for private air carriers have been slashed from Rs 5000 to Rs 400. Similarly, the night parking charge, which was Rs 2500 earlier, has been completely waived.

The state general administration department has notified the revised rates through a resolution. Since the state had attracted a host of investment proposals from steel, mining, power and IT, the demand for air connectivity within the state has increased.

Some private carriers have submitted proposals to start air services from Bhubaneswar to important commercial destinations within Odisha.

Recently, the state government had sought the support of corporate houses for introduction of low cost regional flights proposed by Air Odisha Aviation Pvt Ltd.

It had written to corporate like Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd, Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), Bhushan Power and Steel, Hindalco, Odisha Power Generation Corporation (OPGC), Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL), Nalco, National Institute of Technology (Rourkela), Vedanta Aluminium, Odisha Cement, Adani Mining and Ind Barath Energy (Utkal) to ask their officers to use the services of Air Odisha while travelling to respective company’s offices and plants at different locations in the state.  

Air Odisha proposes to use small aircrafts (with capacity to carry nine passengers and two pilots) to connect different industrial hubs. The company is likely to launch its flights from the first week of November on an experimental basis.

The company will initially run its flights between Bhubaneswar and Rourkela with stoppages at Jharsuguda and Sambalpur. Mine rich locations like Barbil and Angul also figure on the company's radar and operations to these areas will be introduced depending on viability.