Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya M. Scindia and Minister of State for Civil Aviation General (Retd) VK Singh inaugurated the direct flight between Jabalpur and Kolkata by SpiceJet on Friday.

The airline will be operating daily flights and deploy its Q400,78-seater turbo prop aircraft designed for shorter distance flights on the route. This new flight route is a part of 26 new domestic flights that SpiceJet is launching Friday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation informed. Speaking on the occasion, Scindia said that there has been a massive expansion in the air services in the country in the last one year, particularly in Madhya Pradesh where there were 554 aircraft movements per week in July 2021 and the figure has now gone up to 980.

The inaugural event was also graced by Rakesh Singh, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), Vivek K Tankha, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), Ashok Rohani, Member of Legislative Assembly, Jabalpur Cantonment, Rajiv Bansal, Secretary, MoCA and Ajay Singh, CMD, SpiceJet and many other dignitaries virtually.

Providing details, he said that Jabalpur is now connected to 10 cities, and aircraft movement has gone upto 182. Similarly, Gwalior was connected to 4 cities in July, 2021 with 56 aircraft movement, and the figure has gone upto 100. Indore with 308 aircraft movement has leaped to 468 and is now connected with 20 cities. The state capital Bhopal, which had airlinks with 5 cities in July 2021, is now connected with 13 cities and has 226 aircraft movements. Khajuraho airport is also connected with Delhi, having 4 flights per week.

The Minister said that Jabalpur airport was established in 1930, and was used in the second world war. “Now, the airport is being expanded, with runway length going up from 1988 metre to 2750 metre. Terminal building capacity is being expanded from 200 passengers in peak hours to 250, and its area will go up from 2600 square metres to 10713 square metres 3 aero bridges are being built, and new ATC tower and fire station are being built. He assured that the expansion work, being undertaken at the cost of Rs 412 Crore, will be complete by March next year,” the minister said.

General (Retd) VK Singh congratulated the people of Jabalpur for getting new connectivity, which will help in boosting the business, trade and tourism in the area. The people of Jabalpur and its adjoining areas will benefit by getting a direct air connectivity which will facilitate seamless movement of passengers and vice-versa. With the new direct flight, common people will get a new option to travel which will boost the tourism potential and increase the economic activity of both regions. Jabalpur has already connected with nine cities i.e. Bengaluru, Delhi, Bilaspur, Hyderabad, Indore, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Bhopal. Now it is being connected with 10th city which is Kolkata.