Flights from Chipi airport? Not before Apr

Flight operations from the airport at Chipi in Konkan’s Sindhudurg district are unlikely to commence before April, as the private aerodrome operator is yet to comply

Flight operations from the airport at Chipi in Konkan’s Sindhudurg district are unlikely to commence before April, as the private aerodrome operator is yet to comply with certain regulations. This is when the aviation ministry had said this year that they will start operations from March 2019 , which was later delayed to October 2019. The airport was constructed at an investment of ~520-crore by city-based road developer IRB at Parule Chipi, on a design-build-finance-operate-transfer basis for the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC). It has a 2,500-metre long runway and a terminal building with a capacity to handle 200 departing and arriving passengers each. The airport, located close to the Goa border, will provide better connectivity to the Konkan region of Maharashtra, Goa, north Karnataka and western Maharashtra.

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“We had done an inspection and raised certain observations/findings, which they have to comply with,” a top official of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) told Hindustan Times. The official also said that the operator had not yet applied for licence for the new airport. IRB did not respond to requests for a comment on the issue.

The ministry of civil aviation had in April, 2019, given permission to Alliance Air, an Air India’s subsidiary, to operate flights from the new airport under the government’s regional connectivity scheme, Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN), which proposes to increase air connectivity to smaller cities.

The new facility was earlier expected to start operations in October last year, following the successful trial flight with a 10-seater Falcon 2000 aircraft in September 2018. Former minister of state for home (rural) Deepak Kesarkar, in the then BJP-Sena government in the state, had even announced March 5 as the inauguration date for the new airport ahead of the 2019 parliamentary polls.

Once functional, Chipi will have the state’s 14th airport. Another airport in the Konkan region is being built at Ratnagiri. These airports are also expected to boost tourism. “Sindhudurg Chipi airport is expected to witness a good footfall as it will act as an alternate to Goa’s Dabolim, which is just a three-hour drive away from Chipi,” said an Airports Authority of India official.