Politics keeps airport ‘grounded’

CHANDIGARH: City's quest to mark its presence on international flight map appears to have been smitten by "political" bug. In December 2011, just before announcement of elections in Punjab, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had written to Centre to accord necessary approvals for starting an international flight from Chandigarh.

However, no positive signal has been received from the Centre in the past two months. Sources confirmed that operation of international flight would depend upon the result of Punjab assembly polls, which would be announced in March. It also added that the issue has taken political colours and everyone wants to take political mileage for the international flight.

Airports Authority of India (AAI) had decided to start international flight from its newly-opened domestic terminal at Chandigarh airport till the time work at Mohali international airport is completed.

For that, in October 2011 Air Arabia airlines offered to start Sharjah-Chandigarh-Sharjah flight thrice a week and the timings of the flight were also decided, according to which flight would reach at 5.10pm at Chandigarh and would take off at 5.50pm for Sharjah.

Even status of customs airport was also accorded to the local airport by the Union ministry of finance, which is a mandatory for launching international air operations. However, the flight could not be launched because of some more necessary approvals from the ministry of defence (MOD) and director general civil aviation (DGCA).

When asked for the reasons of such unprecedented and unending delay of launching the international flight from city, director of Chandigarh Airport, Captain H S Toor, said large number of formalities are required for the international flights. "I know there is delay in launching international flights, but standard procedure in accordance with the law of land is to be followed before a final permission," Toor added.

Lapsing deadlines

July 2009 | AAI announced to launch Chandigarh-Dubai flight but the same was cancelled due to poor infrastructure

August 2009 | A private airline backed out because of non-availability of required infrastructure

April 2011 | The new terminal was made operational but was delayed again

October 2011 | Air Arabia offered to start Sharjah-Chandigarh-Sharjah flight but it failed to start

November 15, 2011 | Timings were also scheduled, but no sign of operation

December 25, 2011 | Sale of ticket was expected to start but no results

The problem

Chandigarh airport is mainly a defence airfield and any foreign aircraft can land here only after getting clearance from MoD, which is pending. DGCA can give approval only after the green signal from MoD.

Source:  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com