SHILLONG, Dec 10: The Shillong Airport at Umroi is gearing up to cater to the Shillong-Delhi flight service which is scheduled for take off from December 21 for the first time.
Flybig, the airline, will operate a 72-seater Q400 aircraft, which is more enhanced than ATR aircraft, between the city and the national capital.
Officials from Flybig have been communicating with the airport officials on a regular basis.
For its part, the airline has confirmed the start of the service as scheduled while the government has promised to ensure that the flight would be operational at least twice a week.
An official from the airport said the lone airport of Meghalaya, which has remained more or less non-functional due to the absence of a regular flight for quite some time now, is ready for the direct flight.
It may be mentioned that a lot of development has taken place in the airport with some extension work still underway.
“The airport is ready even as other extension work is going on. All the facilities which are required for the flight to operate from the airport is available at the airport,” an official of the airport said.
However, with just 11 days left for the flight service to start, there is still some work pending in terms of facilitating the airline to set up their ticketing counters, check-in counters and even position their staff in the airport.
Last month, chief minister Conrad Sangma and DoNER minister, Jitendra Singh held discussions on the direct flight service.
It may be recalled that the Shillong-Kolkata flight operated by Indigo had many takers for the service.
However, Indigo had stopped the services earlier this year in view of the pandemic, and since then, there has been no word from the airline in regard to resumption of services.