Flight ops between Pithoragarh-Hindon begin
New Delhi: The flight operations on the Pithoragarh-Hindon route were formally launched on Friday at the Hindon airport in the National Capital Region. According to Airports Authority of India (AAI), Air Heritage's flight 4H-104 from Pithoragarh to Hindon and 4H-105 from Hindon to Pithoragarh started operations on Friday.
Trivendra Singh Rawat, Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Gen VK Singh (Retd), Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways flagged off the departing flight after handing over boarding passes to the departing passengers. "The Airport Terminal Building was suitably decorated and proper arrangements were made for hosting personnel from the media fraternity," said AAI official.
Expressing happiness over the launch of flight operations between the two places, Rawat said apart from Pithoragarh, it will also bring places like Almora, Champawat and Bageshwar of the state closer to New Delhi. The flight service will be available six days a week except on Thursday. Travelling to New Delhi by road from these places used to take a lot of time. People can now benefit from flight services which are economical too apart from being time-saving, Rawat said.
The aircraft is Kings Air B-350. The flights will operate six days a week except for Thursday. Arrival at Hindon Airport will be at 12:30 pm, while the flight will depart from Hindon for Pithoragarh at 1 pm. AAI in their press statement said that communication has been received from Star Air that they are also going to operate scheduled flights for Hubli-Hindon-Hubli with effect from November 6, 2019. On Thursday, a senior rank officer also visited the civil terminal and accessed the security situation. An inspector, 15 sub-inspectors, six head constables, 30 constables, a lady sub-inspector and woman constables have been pressed into service to provide security.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 8 had inaugurated the new civil enclave at Hindon airport from where commercial flights would be operated. Hindon airport, which is around 40 km from the IGI Airport in Delhi, belongs to the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the AAI has developed a civil enclave inside it. The airport will reduce the load at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport. The air force station is located close to Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. The Indian Air Force permitted the use of the airbase for civilian flights under regional air connectivity scheme UDAN.
