Jharsuguda: The Veer Surendra Sai (VSS) Airport in Odisha’s Jharsuguda district will soon become an all-weather facility as the much-awaited Instrument Landing System (ILS) will be installed by end of August.
ILS, also called Radio Navigation System, can provide an aircraft with horizontal and vertical guidance before and during landing in case of low visibility due to fog or heavy rain.
“We are going to soon complete the installation of ILS. This will help in the operation of the airport in poor visibility conditions due to bad weather. The targeted date is August 31, 2020,” informed VSS Airport Director Kishore Kumar Senapati.
The ILS will cost around Rs 8 crore, he added.
The airport, built with an investment of about Rs 210 crore and inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 22, 2018, has been witnessing delays and cancellation of several flights due to visibility concerns during inclement weather.
The VSS airport has only Visual Flight Rules (VFR) operation system, which can’t help aircraft land in low visibility.
Notably, the Civil Aviation Ministry had taken a decision to install the state-of-the-art landing system at the airport in July 2019 and it was to be made operational in December last year.
The airport provides connectivity to Bhubaneswar, Raipur, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Delhi under the government’s regional connectivity scheme of UDAN or Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik. SpiceJet and Indian Airlines are currently offering flight services from here.
