Patna, Dec. 26: The chartered flight service from the city to different districts and Jharkhand has been deferred by three months.

The service was supposed to commence from November. But it would now start by February-end, as the operation schedule has not been finalised yet.

“We have received the nod from the directorate general of civil aviation and the ministry of civil aviation for the operation of the flights in Bihar and Jharkhand. But the operation schedule is yet to be finalised. We intend to start the service by February-end,” Leslie Marcar, head of marketing, Door-to-Door Services (DTDS), told The Telegraph over phone from Bangalore.

The operator has made arrangements for parking its planes at Calcutta airport after the requests for the same at Patna airport was denied for the past two years.

Bangalore-based DTDS has hired two nine-seater aircraft — Cessna 208 B Grand Karwan — from Spirit Air Private Limited. Their pilots would be sent to New Zealand for training.

The flights would be offered for various services, including air taxi, celebration flights (birthday/anniversary), tourist flights and business flights. The services would be offered on eight routes between Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal and Odisha.

Sources said after the service commences, people would be able to travel between Patna and Jamshedpur in an hour and 15 minutes paying Rs 6,365.