Direct flight between Jabalpur-Kolkata begins today

Jabalpur: SpiceJet started the first direct flight between Jabalpur and Kolkata today. Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya M. Scindia inaugurated the direct flight.

SpiceJet will be operating daily flights and deploying its Q400,78-seater turboprop aircraft designed for shorter distance flights on the route. This new flight route is a part of 26 new domestic flights that the airline is launching today.

The Flight schedule is as below:

Speaking on the occasion, Scindia said that there has been a massive expansion in the air services in the country in the last one year, particularly in Madhya Pradesh where there were 554 aircraft movements per week in July 2021 and the figure has now gone up to 980.

Providing details, the Minister said that Jabalpur is now connected to 10 cities – Bengaluru, Delhi, Bilaspur, Hyderabad, Indore, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Bhopal and Kolkata – and aircraft movement has gone up to 182. Similarly, Gwalior was connected to 4 cities in July 2021 with 56 aircraft movement, and the figure has gone up to 100. Indore with 308 aircraft movement has leapt to 468 and is now connected with 20 cities. The state capital Bhopal, which had air links with 5 cities in July 2021, is now connected with 13 cities and has 226 aircraft movements. Khajuraho airport is also connected with Delhi, having 4 flights per week.

The Jabalpur airport was established in 1930 and was used in the second world war. Now, the airport is being expanded, with runway length going up from 1988 metres to 2750 metres. Terminal building capacity is being expanded from 200 passengers in peak hours to 250, and its area will go up from 2600 square metres to 10713 square metres. 3 aero bridges are being built, and a new ATC tower and fire station are being built. Scindia assured that the expansion work, being undertaken at the cost of Rs 412 Crore, will complete by March next year.

– global bihari bureau