Air connectivity to this steel city was restored on Monday when Deccan Charters Ltd (DCL) chairman G R Gopinath flew into the city on the company?s 19-seater turbo prop aircraft with his team to announce that his airline, only into chartered flights till now, would commence for the first time three non-scheduled Kolkata-Jamshedpur and back passenger flights from Tuesday.
Deccan Charters Ltd operating with a fleet of 15 aircraft (12 helicopters and 3 aero planes) from over 10 operational and engineering bases is India?s leading general aviation services company offering aircraft maintenance, charter services and management.
The steel city had air connectivity with Kolkata till November 15, 2009 when Kingfisher withdrew its services citing downgrading of the airport by the DGCA from ?3C? to ?2C?.
Speaking to the media an upbeat Gopinath however was confident that he would, in the next five to six months, be able to provide a bigger ATR-72 service to the city and that he had already placed orders for the planes.
Starting with the Kolkata-Jamshedpur flight now, Deccan Charters has plans to soon add a Kolkata-Cooch Behar, Kolkata-Gaya, Kolkata-Durgapur, Kolkata-Bhilai, Kolkata-Rourkela service.
It was Gopinath himself, who on Tata Steel?s completion day of its centenary of incorporation on August 26, 2007, helped Air Deccan, which was later on taken over by Kingfisher, launch the first air service to the steel city.
It has thus been a re-launch of air services by another of Gopinath?s companies to the steel city —- Deccan Charters Ltd (DCL) this time — which would fly the 19-seaters from Monday to Saturday three times a day each way between Kolkata and Jamshedpur (and vice versa) at a fare of Rs 4,500 each way.
Gopinath, who described Jamshedpur as the first industrial city of the country as also with its association with JRD Tata, the birthplace of aviation in the country, said that his vision has always been to connect unconnected parts of the country to the metros ?which was a bigger challenge than linking Mumbai with Delhi?.
Speaking about Air Deccan, which he later hived off to Kingfisher, Gopinath said the airline had in four years? time grown larger than Indian Airlines and Jet Airways and was flying to 70 cities only because it had linked the small cities with the large ones.
The Tata group, which signed an agreement with Deccan Charters on August 6 for the Kolkata-Jamshedpur service, would, along with the business community be immensely benefited by the connectivity as it would also result in the city embarking on a renewed phase of growth.