KOLKATA: The Kazi Nazrul Islam Airport at Andal near Durgapur received its second service on Sunday as Air India that had already been running three flights a week to Delhi began another thrice-a-week operation between Hyderabad and the industrial belt in Burdwan.The inaugural flight – an Airbus A319 – touched down at Andal with 67 passengers at 12.55am on Sunday and the return flight took off around 2am with 107 passengers. The flight reached Hyderabad at 4.15am.Sunday’s flight is the second service from the Greenfield airport after Air India resumed service between Delhi and Durgapur on April last year. However, unlike the Delhi flight, the one to Hyderabad is a red-eye one, arriving past midnight and taking off in the early hours of the day.The flight is to be operated with a 144 all economy seater Airbus A319 aircraft that will fly between Hyderabad and Durgapur every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. While the hours are odd, airline officials said the low pricing and the timing itself will be extremely attractive to woo passengers.“Bookings for the next few days are also encouraging. Because of the late night journey, people can fly in the night and save the day. This flight will allow passengers to catch connecting flights from Hyderabad to other states in south India at ease as they would reach Hyderabad as early as 4.30am. This timing will surely act as a catalyst for passengers to take this flight,” said Apurva Sharma, the airport director.Sharma added the passengers were excited for the new flight as some of them had turned up at the airport six hours before the flight’s departure. “The passengers were excited as the inaugural flight landed safely and fliers were greeted by airport staff. From next Wednesday, we will run a survey asking passengers additional services and facilities they would like at the airport,” said Sharma.The director added that they are also expecting SpiceJet – that won bids for two flights in Udaan 3 – will also start operating their flights to Chennai and Mumbai in the next two months.“Although they are yet to confirm the time slot, the Chennai service is likely to begin by the end of March and by the middle of April, flights between Mumbai and Durgapur is likely to start operation,” Sharma added.Developed by Bengal Aerotropolis Projects Ltd (BAPL), the Kazi Nazrul Islam Airport in Durgapur is India’s first operational private greenfield airport. Air India had resumed operations on the Durgapur-Delhi-Durgapur sector last April. Unlike the earlier stint, when AI operated flights with viability gap funding (the state or airport operator’s commitment to fund a certain number of seats if these were not sold), it returned with a commercial flight that had no such constraint.On August last year, the directorate general of civil aviation cleared the operation of the instrument landing system (ILS) at the Andal Airport that allowed the airport to continue operations even after dusk. The Category-I ILS enables flights to land in low visibility of at least 800 metre Without the aid, pilots required a visibility of nearly 3,000 metre. Kolkata airport has a more advanced CAT-IIIB ILS that allows pilots to touch down even when visibility is down to 50 metre.

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