Restore Two Air India Flights: Naveen To Prabhu

Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Partnaik has urged the Centre to restore two direct Air India flights from Bhubaneswar to Bangkok and Bengaluru.

In the letter to Union Civil Aviation minister Suresh Prabhu on Friday, he said that the Air India recently suspended direct flight services from Bhubaneswar to Bangkok and Bhubaneswar to Bengaluru.

He further said the Biju Patnaik Airport in Bhubaneswar got the international tag on October 30, 2010 and the flight from Bhubaneswar to Bangkok by the Air India started on December 10, 2017.

“It was expected that the Air India would subsequently expand its operations to other destinations like Singapore, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. But the abrupt suspension of the existing operations has dealt a severe jolt to the aviation and tourism sector in the state. This apart, the withdrawal of the domestic flight between Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar has come as a setback for IT industry in the state,” the chief minister noted.

He urged the Union minister to intervene in the matter urgently by impressing the Air India management to restore these two flight operations forthwith and also to explore the possibility to start international operations from Bhubaneswar to other South East Asian countries considering the immense potential in these routes.