The much-awaited flight service from Bhubaneswar to the mountain town Jeypore, IndiaOne Air flight took off on Wednesday from Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA), Bhubaneswar as part of the first trial flight from the city to Jeypore under the UDAAN scheme. The trial run was conducted ahead of the commencement of the commercial flight services between the two cities.
The nine seater test flight with only the aircraft’s staff onboard took off from BPIA at 10.15 am and landed at Jeypore at around 11.35 am.
Notably, IndiaOne Air was launched last month after receiving clearance from Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in June. The airline’s CEO had then announced to start flight services between Bhubaneswar-Jeypore and Visakhapatnam-Jeypore under the UDAN scheme.
IndiaOne Air uses single-engine nine-seater Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft on the routes. It is the first scheduled airline to use a single engine aircraft for commercial flights.
SR Mall chairman Subash Rout welcomed the step. He demanded a larger plane so that tickets can be easily available and a good no of people will travel to the temple city.
The Jeypore airstrip will be the third to get the civil aviation airport tag in the State after Bhubaneswar and Jharsuguda.
Traveler Shakti Patnaik said, “As we are mostly dependent on the capital city for most of our work, this flight will help us reach in a short time and also it will help the officials to regularly visit the area and see the development works of undivided Koraput district. Earlier, IndiaOne Air Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Arun Kumar Singh
had said, "The first flight will fly directly from Bhubaneswar to Jeypore and Jeypore to Vishakhapatnam. After stabilisation of operations, we will commence services from Utkela.”
“The rates will be like the AC 2nd-tier or will be lower than that. Initially, we will come up with some promotional schemes and the passengers can enjoy air travel within Rs 2000,” Singh had told.