Direct flight services between Delhi and Sikkim commenced on Saturday with a SpiceJet aircraft landing at one of the most scenic airports in India, Pakyong airport in the Himalayan state with 57 passengers.
Commercial flight services to the tabletop airport recommenced after nearly one-and-half years after the private airliner halted its operations between Kolkata and Pakyong in June 2019 due to bad weather conditions and technical problems.
Commercial flight operations to the airport started in October 2018. In June 2019, SpiceJet, the airport’s sole airline providing commercial passenger service, ceased its once daily Kolkata-Pakyong-Kolkata flight due to “unpredictable weather in Pakyong which results in very low visibility.”
It had already suspended the other daily service between Pakyong and Guwahati earlier. Now after almost 18 months of halt the airport authority of India has scored over issues which includes installation of alternative instrumental landing system called Required Navigation Performance.
Required Navigation Performance (RNP) is a family of navigation specifications under Performance Based Navigation (PBN) which permit the operation of aircraft along a precise flight path with a high level of accuracy and the ability to determine aircraft position with both accuracy and integrity.
A Bombardier Q400 aircraft landed at the airport around noon and flew back to Delhi with 12 passengers on board, they said. Spicejet flight took off from Delhi Airport around 9:45 AM touched down at Pakyong airport at around 12:10 PM.
State Health Minister M K Sharma, senior officials of the Tourism Department and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) were present at the airport. “This was the first commercial flight from Delhi to Pakyong,” a senior tourism official told.
The weather conditions were suitable for the aircraft to land safely on the 1.7 km by 30 m runway, he said. The direct Delhi-Pakyong flight will boost tourism and also help locals visit Delhi for medical emergencies, Sharma said.
The airport, built by the AAI at an estimated cost of Rs 605 crore, is located at a height of 4,646 feet and is one of the five highest airports in the country. Pakyong Tabletop Airport is the 100th operational airport in India, and the only airport in the state of Sikkim.
(All photos through Twitter)