Bangalore-based Door to Door Services (DTDS) Limited has suspended the operation of its chartered flights in the Patna sector because of poor passenger flow.

“The company has stopped operating the flights from the last week because of lack of passengers to and from Jai Prakash Narayan International Airport, Patna. Another reason is the rush in other cities where we operate. We are now concentrating on services between Calcutta, Bhubaneswar, Rourkela, Jamshedpur and Ranchi,” Captain Rakesh Saxena, head of operations, DTDS, told The Telegraph on Wednesday.

“We are at present in the resource augmentation process and would start operating within the next couple of months,” he added.

DTDS had launched the services in association with Spirit Air Private Ltd with an aim to cater to a limited number of short-distance flyers.

The non-scheduled airline had commenced its operations in Patna on February 6, 2012, on the Patna-Jamshedpur route. The services were launched after a wait of nearly two years.

The project was initially stuck because of factors such as lack of night parking space at the Patna airport.

The operator made some arrangements to park its planes at the Calcutta airport after Jai Prakash Narayan International Airport authorities denied requests for the facility.

DTDS had hired two nine-seater aircraft — Cessna 208 B Grand Karwan — for operation in the Patna sector. But with the second flight developing a snag, the service was inaugurated with the first aircraft only. Incidentally, the second aircraft never reached the state capital.

The services of the non-scheduled charter flights began in the Patna-Ranchi route on March 2.

The flights used to leave and reach Patna airport on Mondays and Fridays and were offered for services such as air taxi, celebration flights (birthdays/anniversaries), tourism and business.

Aviation experts attributed the suspension of the non-scheduled charter services to the lack of marketing efforts and bad conditions of district airstrips.

Mirza Faizan, a city-based aviation scientist and chief executive officer of Bangalore-based Avembsys Technologies Pvt. Ltd, told The Telegraph: “Chances of success of chartered flights service are more in tier-2 cities like Patna and tier-3 cities like Purnea or Bhagalpur than tier-1 cities like Calcutta. It is because the tier- 2 and tier-3 cities are not well connected than tier-1 cities. When we talk about chartered flight services, we must understand its need. These services mainly cater to three kinds of passengers — those addressing medical emergencies, VIPs and businessmen. VIP movement on chartered flights is still not that frequent. The operator should have targeted the business and medical sector. The most profitable among the two could have been the medical passengers. The operator should have co-ordinated with hospitals and harnessed the Patna sector.”

He added: “The service could have been more successful if the operator had focused on providing connectivity to airstrips in districts. However, the scenario of airstrips across the country is not impressive. Of the 450 airstrips across the country, at least 250 are not operational. This shows that the government is not able to take care of the airstrips.”

Bihar has 21 airfields, of which, three (Bihta, Purnea and Darbhanga) are under the control of Indian Air Force. Nine other airfields, including the ones in Jehanabad and Ara, have been put in the category of “kachha” and “abandoned”.

While the rest are under the category of metalled runways with reinforced cement concrete-made airstrips, most are in a dilapilated condition.