Gangtok, March 15: Flight services at the Pakyong airport in Sikkim resumed which were suspended due to operational difficulties in October last year, said officials, adding that a Spicejet plane took off for Delhi.
The Spicejet flight landed at the Pakyong airport with 12 passengers and then, took off for Delhi with 43 passengers, according to a report.
The suspension of services inconvenienced people of the state, besides adversely affecting the tourism industry of Sikkim.
Officials added that the regular flight services will start on March 26 with a daily flight to Delhi for now. Before suspending its operations, SpiceJet was the only carrier that used to run the services on this route. It used to operate daily flights to Delhi and Kolkata from Pakyong.
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Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang had earlier written to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for resuming flight services.
Pakyong airport is located at a distance of 26.8 km from the state capital Gangtok. The busy Bagdogra airport in West Bengal’s Siliguri is around 123 km from Gangtok.
Earlier, an official stated that Pakyong is a VFR (Visual Flight Rules) airport and does not have instrument landing facilities. The required minimum to operate from this airport is 5,000 feet, which is difficult to achieve on most days of the year, especially during the winter months.
“To avoid inconvenience to our passengers, flight operations have been temporarily suspended. We will share an update once the services resume,” the official said.
