Rourkela: Despite the efforts of the Odisha Government to improve air connectivity, frequent flight cancellations of Alliance Air on Rourkela-Bhubaneswar route have been jeopardising the aim.
Either due to technical glitch or citing repair work, the airlines have been defaulting on the operations. The recent schedule of the airlines shows the Rourkela-Bhubaneswar flight services will be in effect on Sundays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
As per the schedule, the operations will be cancelled on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays till December 15, 2024.
The Kolkata-Rourkela-Bhubaneswar-Rourkela-Kolkata flight services were stopped on October 9 due to technical glitch. Even though repair work was carried out and the flight services resumed, this did not last long. The airlines halted the operations on the route from October 13. Later it said, services on the route will be normalised by November 30.
Some passengers termed the fight services between Rourkela and Bhubaneswar as a ‘farce’ while holding Alliance Air responsible for the disruptions.
Many associations and organisations in Rourkela have been drawing the attention of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) about the difficulties of the passengers due to frequent cancellations.
They demanded the AAI to allow other airlines to operate on the Rourkela-Bhubaneswar route instead of Alliance Airlines.