Six flights from Kolkata, two each from Andal, Kalaikunda

KOLKATA: This year, Kolkata airport will be linked to six new stations while Durgapur airport will get flights to two more metros. Also, two air bases in the state — Kalaikunda and Hashimara — will become civilian enclaves. These are part of new routes allotted to various airlines in the latest edition of regional connectivity scheme Udan-3.
Airports Authority of India (AAI) regional executive director (east) S P Yadav said flights would be introduced from Kolkata to Amritsar, Gwalior, Shillong, Ghazipur, Hashimara and Jharsuguda under Udan-3.While SpiceJet has won bids to Jharsuguda along with Alliance Air, the carrier will also connect Kolkata to Gwalior and Ghazipur. IndiGo has won the bid for flights to Amritsar and Shillong. Zoom Air will connect Kolkata to Hashimara in north Bengal.
“Two airlines — Deccan and Air Odisha — that were allotted routes in the previous phase of Udan but failed to operate the flights due to paucity of aircraft have been kept out of Udan-3. New routes have instead been offered to airlines with reliable operations. We expect most of them to take off this year,” said Yadav.
Kazi Nazrul Islam Airport at Andal that currently has an Air India flight to Delhi and will get another thrice-a-week connection to Hyderabad from Febraury 17, has been given two more connections in the Udan-3 scheme. Spice-Jet is scheduled to operate the flights to Mumbai and Chennai.
Alliance Air has been allotted two flights from Kalaikunda air base to Visakhapatnam and Bhubaneswar.
Yadav said an AAI team would visit Hashimara and Kalaikunda soon to find out the infrastructure requirements and begin work at the earliest so that the flights can be operational by the end of the year.