Flights between Hindon and Hubli airports have temporarily been suspended for two days till Wednesday, said officials of the Airport Authority of India (AAI), after the ministry of civil aviation banned all flight services on routes that are more than 500km in stage-length. The private airline operating the route under the UDAN (Ude Desk ke Aam Nagarik) scheme has approached the ministry to grant permission to operate a route which is more than 500km, said AAI officials.
In its order of May 24, the ministry had issued directions for the resumption of regional flight services under the UDAN scheme with several riders. One of the criteria states that only operational routes up to 500km in stage-length will be permitted to resume operations.
The civil terminal airport at Sikandarpur near the Hindon airbase operates two routes, namely the Hindon-Hubli route and the Hindon-Pithoragarh route. Flight services resumed on May 25 between Hindon-Hubli. A total of 30 passengers arrived in Ghaziabad from Hubli while 18 boarded the same flight back to Hubli.
However, the airlines, Star Air, decided to suspend the flights on Tuesday and Wednesday once the criteria of 500km distance was made known to the management.
“We received the circular from the ministry on the morning of May 24 that under the UDAN scheme all the flights which are more than 500km would not be permitted to fly. Since Hindon-Hubli is one of the longest routes of about 1,500km, we have requested to the ministry to allow us to operate further flights. We are expecting a reply soon but till then, we have cancelled our flight for two days, starting Tuesday,” said an officer from Star Air.
“We got the intimation on May 24 but the flight for May 25 was already booked. As such, we did not want to lose the confidence of the passengers and operated the flight for the day after getting permission. For the flights cancelled for the next two days, we are allowing full refund to passengers who have booked tickets with us. They will be accommodated in the next permitted flights,” the officer said.
{{/usCountry}}“We got the intimation on May 24 but the flight for May 25 was already booked. As such, we did not want to lose the confidence of the passengers and operated the flight for the day after getting permission. For the flights cancelled for the next two days, we are allowing full refund to passengers who have booked tickets with us. They will be accommodated in the next permitted flights,” the officer said.
{{/usCountry}}Shobha Bhardwaj, the director of the civil terminal, also confirmed that flights to Hubli were cancelled for two days.
“The airline has approached the ministry for necessary permissions. The flight services will resume once the permission is received. For the other route, Hindon-Pithoragarh, we have no intimation from the airline as of now,” she added.
The Hindon-Pithoragarh route is operated by Air Heritage. Its CEO Rohit Mathur did not respond to our calls for comment on the matter.