Aviation Ministry Responds To Flight Cancellation At Jharsuguda Airport

New Delhi: The Centre on Sunday sought to reach out to passengers facing inconvenience due to cancellation of flights at Jharsuguda airport, saying measures are being initiated to ensure regularity.

The Veer Surendra Sai airport is a VRF (Visual Flight Routes) airport like the Juhu airport in Mumbai, which is vulnerable to weather conditions.

To resolve this issue, the Civil Aviation Ministry in a tweet said critical equipment which are vital for the proper functioning of the airport are being tested and in the process of being installed.

It said that while the Instrument Landing System (ILS) is under installation, the DVOR DME procedure is awaiting Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s approval for its use in the airport.

DVOR or for Doppler Very High-Frequency Omni Range technology when married with DME (distance measuring instrument) helps in better navigation and coordination of incoming and outgoing flights irrespective of weather conditions.

Inclement weather during the past one week has seen several flight to and from Jharsuguda being cancelled due to the absence of this technology. Flights on July 1, 4 and 5 of both Alliance Air and Spice Jet were cancelled. On July 1, a Jharsuguda-bound Alliance Air flight from Bhubaneswar failed to land in the industrial town and had to return to the state capital, before being re-routed to Ranchi.

Jharsuguda airport director S K Chauhan was quoted in the media as saying that since the airport developed under the UDAN scheme, it was started with basic minimum infrastructure. However, with impressive growth in passenger traffic, all other necessary equipment for smooth flight operations are being installed.

The airport clocked 10,000 passenger movement within the first month of its operation. Occupancy between Jharsuguda and Delhi has remained between 90-95 per cent.