Guwahati: Budget carrier SpiceJet has planned to resume commercial flights to and from the Pakyong Airport in Sikkim from the last week of March.
The airline suspended its operations to and from Sikkim’s lone airport on October 30 last year due to “operational constraints”.
Pakyong Airport director Rajendra Grover said SpiceJet had recently sounded the airport authorities if the facility was ready to resume flight operations, and the reply was in the affirmative.
“We have conveyed to them that the airport is ready for flight operations, and SpiceJet is welcome to resume the operations,” The Telegraph quoted Grover as saying.
He said the tentative date of the flight resumption was March 26.
The airline is likely to operate flights only from and to Delhi, but the possibility of resuming the Pakyong-Calcutta service depends on the operator’s convenience.
Grover said the airport had been in operation during the past four months when SpiceJet had suspended its flights with many chartered flights, and survey and defence planes landing and taking off from the airstrip.
“SpiceJet had suspended air services due to, what they told us, ‘operation reasons’, but they did not clarify as to what the operation reasons were. What we understand, though, is they had a shortage of aircraft,” he said.
Grover said the airport authorities were also in talks with other airlines to introduce services to and from Pakyong.
“We have invited Flybig Airlines, and they have told us they will conduct a feasibility study and get back to us,” he said.
The Pakyong Airport has had a stop-start flight since it was inaugurated in September 2018.