After having announced in April the commencement of chartered commercial air service between Bihar and Jharkhand the Indian Air Taxi (operator Spirit Air) has now teamed up with DTDS Travel and Tour Planner Private Limited introduce the service between Patna, Gaya and Ranchi, beginning August 14.
After its inauguration on Friday, the three days a week flight service would be operated on Monday, Thursday and Saturday, said associate vice-president of Spirit Air GC Biswas.
Executive, Business Development of DTDS Prateek Shrivastav said that Cessna 172 Sky Hawk aircraft would leave Ranchi at 9am and reach Gaya at 10am.It would then leave Gaya for Patna at 10:30am and reach here at 11am.The Ranchi –Gaya fare had been pegged at Rs.3395 per passenger while that Gaya-Patna fare will be Rs 2290.
THE Luck now-based operator (Spirit Air) was earlier scheduled to commence the service from here in mid-April .Its commercial flight,however;could never get off that ground because of my rid reasons – lack of infrastructure support from Government and bad weather, just to mention a few.
Putting its bad experience behind, the private airline has now entered into a month-long agreement with DTDS to commence the service only at ‘controlled airports’ under the Airports Authority of India (AAI).As such, it would operate its fur-seater flights only between Ranchi,Gaya and Patna.
As per that agreement, the DTDS would handle ticketing for one month, after which it would re-assess the business proposition and decide on renewal of agreement with Spirit Air.
Earlier, the operator had planned to link some district headquarters of both the states but could not convince either to provide airfields security, ambulance or fire tender services – all of which are mandatory stipulations of the Director General Civil Aviation (DGCA) for flight operation – free of cost.
The Bihar Government was firmly of the belief that, this being a commercial venture, the operator would have to pay for the services It wished to avail. Since the issue still hangs fire, the operator has decided to operate at’ controlled airports ‘under the AAI.
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