By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Shillong airport in the last one month has been a busy with many passengers travelling from the airport which is yet to be properly connected with the rest of the country.
The reason for the busy schedule was the flight which directly landed in Kolkata instead of going via Jorhat.
The lone ATR 48 which lands at the airport goes to Kolkata via Jorhat on three days and on three days the flight goes to Kolkata directly.
The grievances officer of the Shillong airport KP Mondal on Monday said, “The schedule flight was going directly to Kolkata and it drew huge passengers.”
The ATR was made a direct flight to Kolkata since runway expansion work was going on in Jorhat airport.
According to Mondal, all these days the flight was full to its capacityto and fro.
It may be mentioned that Shillong has huge number of air passengers but due to lack of a well connected airport, people are forced to travel all the way to Guwahati airport.
This gives enough hint that there will be passengers if more flights lands at Shillong even as 35-40 percent passengers travelling from Guwahati airport hail from Shillong.
However, from Tuesday the flight will have its routine schedule as three days it will go to Kolkata directly and three days it will go via Jorhat except Friday since no flight lands at the airport“We are even ready to work on Fridays if some flight lands here,” Mondal added.
It may be mentioned that the Planning Commission has approved Rs 28.45 crore for upgradation of the Shillong airport at Umroi which would be utilized for development of additional infrastructure facilities of the airport.