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Bhubaneswar: At a time when low-cost airlines like Air Asia, Air Costa and Fly Dubai have evinced interest to start operations from Bhubaneswar, Mumbai-based Jet Airways has decided to withdraw its Bhubaneswar services beginning this winter.
The news came as a shocker to the flyers as well as the airport authorities here who are expecting the international tag for the airport soon.
“Though the airlines has not yet shown exact causes of the withdrawal, there is no winter schedule for the airlines. We believe that it will stop operations in a month,” said Biju Patnaik airport director Sharad Kumar.
Officials on condition of anonymity however said the airlines is considering not commercially viable to operate in Bhubaneswar in comparison to other tier-II cities. Presently, the airlines is operating Bhubaneswar-Kolkata, Bhubaneswar-Bangalore and Bhubaneswar-Mumbai flights daily.
Kumar however stated that the decision of the airlines would not affect the passengers since other airlines have operations in those busy routes.
“Passengers have other options in these routes and it won’t affect their schedule at all,” he said.
Earlier in July the officials had stated that within a year, three more domestic flights viz. Air Asia, Spice Jet and Go Air might be given permission to operate from Bhubaneswar.
In the same month Air Costa, operated from Vijaywada, had expressed interest to start domestic flights from Bhubaneswar from the first week of September.
A total of 18 flights belonging to Air India, Jet Airways and Indigo are operating from the city. Officials said, the international flights will begin operation once the city airport gets an international tag from the civil aviation ministry. The old domestic terminal has been modified to handle international flights.
