Flight services at Odisha's second airport, Jharsuguda Veer Surendra Sai (VSS) airport began on Sunday under UDAN scheme.
Budget airline SpiceJet operated its daily direct flights to Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata from the airport.
The flights were part of Centre's Regional Connectivity Scheme 'UDAN'.
The airport with a handling capacity of 300 passengers was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 22 last year.
"The first flight of Spicejet landed from Hyderabad. 95 per cent seats booked from Jharsuguda and passengers are very happy," VSS Airport Director Sudesh Kumar Chouhan said.
"It is a historical moment for us as we are frequent fliers. We had to spend lots of time to reach Sambalpur. Now, we can reach within a few hours from Dubai by connecting flights," said Dubai-based software company manager Priyadarshi Panigrahi.
To make it memorable, a water cannon salute was given to the SpiceJet flights and an inaugural program at a small scale was arranged inside the airport lounge.
According to a source, VSS Airport was built at 10275.5 acres of land with an estimated cost of Rs 210 crores.
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