Rourkela: The long wait for improved air connectivity to major cities will end for denizens with flight services to Kolkata finally scheduled to commence from Rourkela airport of Sundargarh district in Odisha starting September 1.

The information, shared by the Civil Aviation Ministry, put an end to speculations over air connectivity from the Smart City as this has been a longstanding demand of local residents.

As per reports, Alliance Air (AA), which was chosen via bidding under the the Regional Connectivity Scheme- Udey Desh ka Aam Nagarik (RCS-UDAN) as the selected airline operator for Rourkela-Bhubaneswar route, will provide the services for the new route. It will modify the flight schedule of its ATR-72 aircraft, currently operating in the Rourkela-Bhubaneswar route, to cater to the Rourkela-Kolkata route via Bhubaneswar.

According to its tentative flight schedule, the normal operation of ATR-72 will continue on Rourkela-Bhubaneswar route for seven days. For four days in a week- Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday- the modified route schedule will be between Kolkata and Bhubaneswar via Rourkela. The flight will depart from Kolkata at 11.40 am, reach Rourkela at 1.10 pm. It will depart for Bhubaneswar at 1.35 pm and arrive at Bhubaneswar at 2.30 pm. After a 25 minutes halt, the aircraft will depart from Bhubaneswar at 2.55 pm, reach Rourkela at 3.50 pm. It will then leave from Rourkela at 4.15 pm and reach Kolkata at 5.45pm where it will halt for the night.

On the rest three days-Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday-the route will be in the opposite direction , i-e, Kolkata and Rourkela via Bhubaneswar. The aircraft will leave Kolkata at 1.10 pm and reach Bhubaneswar at 2.40 pm. It will depart from Bubaneswar at 3.05 pm and reach Rourkela at 4 pm. It will then depart from Rourkela at 4.25 om and reach Bhubaneswar at 5.20 pm where it will again fly at 5.45 pm and reach Kolkata at 7.15 pm for night halt.

The addition of the new route had been proposed when flight services had started from Rourkela airport last January 7. But non-installation of instrumental landing system (ILS) had resulted in weather conditions impacting flight services as a result of which bookings had dropped from 90 per cent to 40 per cent. Locals had also been demanding flight services to Delhi and Bengaluru apart from Kolkata. While the Civil Aviation Ministry had not made much progress on the other proposals, the recent announcement for inclusion of Kolkata in the route has brought much cheer for people in the region.