Steel city flight service to resume tomorrow

Come April 2, frequent travellers would be able to fly down to Jamshedpur in comfort and style in just one-and-a-half hours instead of wasting hours on the road or on train.

Spirit Air Private Limited, in association with Bangalore-based Door to Door Service (DTDS) Travel and Tour Planner Pvt. Ltd, would start operating chartered flights between the two cities twice a week at an introductory fare of Rs 1,999. The offer can be availed at the counters at Patna and Jamshedpur airports.

The flight would be an extension of its existing service between Patna and Purnea every Tuesday and Thursday.

The flight would take off from Jamshedpur at 8.40am and touch down at Patna at 10.10am. It would take off from Patna at 10.30am to reach Purnea at 11:30am. After a halt of 25 minutes at Chunapur air force station at Purnea, the flight would take off at 11.55am to return to Patna at 12.55pm. In its last lap, the flight would take off from Patna at 1.20pm to reach Jamshedpur at 2.50pm.

DTDS launched similar chartered flight services from Patna to Jamshedpur and Ranchi in February, 2012. However, they were suspended four months later owing to low passenger flow. Services on the Patna-Purnea sector resumed from November 6.

Explaining the reason behind the re-launch of the Patna-Jamshedpur service, Shyamal Chakraborty, the DTDS sales manager, said: “We are already operating non-scheduled flights on the Calcutta-Jamshedpur-Calcutta route since January 2012. We have been receiving requests for resumption of the Patna-Jamshedpur flight. So, we decided to launch our services on this route.”

Frequent travellers between the state capital and the steel city seem delighted with the announcement. “The flight service would be a boon for those who need to travel between the two cities on an urgent basis. I usually commute by road, which takes around six to eight hours. Moreover, the introductory fare of Rs 1,999 also seems competitive as against the fare of Rs 695 for travelling in an air-conditioned luxury bus. The one-and-a half-hour flight would help save time also because buses take around seven to nine hours,” said Rohit Singh, a resident of Ashiana Nagar in Patna, who works for a private firm in Jamshedpur.

Spirit Air owns the two nine-seat Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan and DTDS looks after the operations. Seats on the chartered flights can be booked online on www.dtdsindia.com. Tele bookings can be made at Patna by calling 0612-2227047 or at Calcutta on 033-32023792. The entire flight (all nine seats) can be booked at least 20 days in advance. Individual seat bookings are open till five hours before departure.

The service can also be availed for birthdays, engagements, marriage anniversaries and other occasions. The first such celebration flight flew on February 17 this year to host an engagement in the sky.