Passengers travelling to Uttar Pradesh and Odisha will soon have the option of taking direct flights to Lucknow and Bhubaneshwar from Ranchi.

Indigo Airlines is set to launch direct passenger flight service to Lucknow four days a week later this month, while Alliance Air will start flights connecting Kolkata, Ranchi and Bhubaneswar from August 11, officials from the Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi said on Monday.

The Indigo flight to Lucknow will be the first direct flight to any of the cities in Uttar Pradesh from Ranchi. As per details shared by the airport authorities, the flight will take off from Lucknow at 10.55am and land in Ranchi at 12.05pm. The aircraft will take off from Ranchi at 12.45 pm and land in Lucknow at 1.40pm.

“Direct flights to Lucknow will begin in the first week of August. The exact date for the first flight has not been announced by the airline as yet,” said the director of Birsa Munda Airport, Vinod Sharma.

The business community in Jharkhand had a long-pending demand for direct flights to Lucknow. The Airport Advisory Committee (AAC) had also stressed on starting flights to Tier Two cities from Ranchi, and the new flights have been launched as a part of the initiative.

Alliance Air is also set to operate new flights on Kolkata-Ranchi-Bhubaneshwar route. The company will use its 70-seater aircraft with only aisle and window seats for the service and this will be the first ever direct flight to Bhubaneshwar from the Jharkhand capital.

"Flight 9I 720 will depart from Kolkata at 0800 hrs and arrive in Ranchi at 0940 hrs further departing from Ranchi at 1010 hrs and arrive in Bhubaneswar at 1115hrs," a communique from the airlines company stated.

The Federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FJCCI) has been pressing for new flight services from Ranchi, while the transport department has held several meetings in the past with the focus on connecting Ranchi to tier two cities like Guwahati, Trivandrum, Bhubaneshwar and Chandigarh by air. The trade body had also expressed displeasure over the delay in construction of the Deoghar airport, which once ready, will be the second largest airport in Jharkhand after Ranchi.

At present, at least 20 flights connect Ranchi to New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. The Birsa Munda Airport, which bagged the top position in Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) last year, at present has a 75-meter basic strip, which is the minimum length required for any airport. The state capital was likely to get more flights earlier this year, but the second wave of Covid-19 caused a delay in the process, officials said.