Bengal nixes airline’s Andal plan to bypass Kolkata flight curbs

KOLKATA/ DURGAPUR: Hours after the civil aviation ministry announced the cancellation of flights to Kolkata from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and three other cities with high prevalence of Covid cases, low-cost carrier SpiceJet made an application to the ministry to operate flights from the three metros to Kaji Nazrul Islam Airport in Andal near Durgapur to bypass the curbs.
Flight schedules were drawn up starting Tuesday, a day after the ban on arrivals of flights from Delhi, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu would kick in. The air traffic control was asked to be ready for operations. But the plan was nixed by state government on Sunday with both the airline and airport operator being told that flights would not be allowed.
According to sources, SpiceJet set its plan B in motion immediately after the civil aviation ministry announced the decision to suspend all flights to Kolkata from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune and Nagpur between July 6 and July 19.