Bhubaneswar: The customs' air intelligence unit seized gold weighing 690 grams from a flier, who arrived at Biju Patnaik International Airport by an AirAsia flight from Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday night.

A customs official said the recovered gold was 99.90 per cent pure having a value of Rs 21.89 lakh.

The officials have detained the passenger haling from Chennai and are further interrogating him.

"During search of his personal baggage, the four pieces of gold strips were delicately concealed in aluminium linings of the trolley bags," said a release of the customs.

On August 31, the customs recovered gold weighing 340 grams from two passengers hailing from Chennai. Both the fliers had reached the city airport from Kuala Lumpur by AirAsia.

Four pieces of cylindrical gold bars of foreign origin were found concealed inside the trolley wheels during search of their baggage.

Gold is smuggled from Bangkok and well-organised rackets target the carriers promising them hefty money. "Several methods are being adopted to conceal the metal, including concealing it even in body parts. Sometimes metal is also smuggled through shoes and other luggage," said a customs official.

In a related development, Air India, which suspended its Bhubaneswar-Bangkok flight on July 16, decided to resume the service on this route from December 1. The flight operation was started from Bhubaneswar on December 10 last year.

Sources in the airport said that booking of tickets for the flight had started.

The state government and the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Odisha had also requested the civil aviation ministry to restore the flight services of Air India. The city airport registered a 39.4 per cent growth in passenger traffic in 2017-18 compared to 2016-17. According to official statistics, a total of 32,50,635 passengers, both domestic and international, flew from the airport in 2017-18, while the number was 23,32,433 in 2016-17.