SHILLONG: At a time when the Meghalaya Government emphasizes on improving connectivity in the land locked state of Meghalaya, the Shillong Airport at Umroi has once again become non functional.
Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Air India, has stopped its service from Shillong from June 1 following expiry of agreement on May 31 and till date the Airport is biting the dust.
With the ongoing happenings, the future of the Airport is bleak with no aircrafts landing here.
Alliance Air sources earlier said it was forced to stop the service “due to irregular payment of viability gap funding by the North Eastern Council (NEC) and this allegation has been denied by the NEC.
Sources from the NEC on Monday informed that the Council has written letters to everyone in the Union Ministry but there has been no response from them.
It may be mentioned that Seven Sisters firm was also scheduled to operate a bigger aircraft from the airport but now it is said that the services will start only in September if everything goes well since the NEC and the firm wants to ensure sustainability of the services.
In June last year, the Union Civil Aviation Ministry had directed Air India to resume flights to Shillong after it was suspended from January 2013.
In addition, the expansion of the runway of the Airport is also caught in limbo as the controversy over the land acquisition for the expansion of the airport runway still hangs in fire with no visible solution.