The civil enclave at Air Force Station started operations today with Air Heritage operating flights from Pithorgarh and back. The flight was operated by 9 seater Super kingair B350 turboprop aircraft and is part of Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) – UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik). The airline will operate the flight six days a week, with no ops on Thursdays.
A plaque was unveiled by the Prime Minister in March 2019 to mark the inauguration of the airport, but it had not seen commercial operations yet. This makes Delhi – first city in the country to have two operational airports. The airport has been assigned VDX as its IATA code while VIDX is the ICAO code for the airport.
Next to fly to Hindon will be Ghodawat group’s Star Air, which operates a fleet of two E-145 jets. The airline has announced flights effective 6th November and operate thrice a week.
Which airlines and routes will start from Hindon?
The Civil enclave at Hindon has been built exclusively for UDAN routes and other commercial schedules will not be approved. Star Air of Ghodawat group has won the maximum routes to Hindon. These include Jamnagar – Hindon, Hubli – Hindon and Gulbarga – Hindon.
Air Heritage, which started operations today has won rights to Shimla from Hindon while Turbo Aviation – the parent of Trujet has won rights on Hindon – Faizabad. Domestic market leader IndiGo has won Nashik – Hindon route.
The airport at Faizabad and Gulbarga is not yet ready for commercial operations, while IndiGo’s A320 operations to Nashik might be in question, since Hindon was envisioned to have operations of less than 80-seater aircraft, even though the terminal has a capacity to handle 300 passengers an hour.
How long will the airport operate?
The airport is very close to Ghaziabad – part of the National Capital Region (NCR), which has a population of 25,00,000. The airport is expected to cease operations for civil aircraft when additional movements are available at New Delhi airport or when Jewar airport is operational.
It is likely that additional movements under UDAN will be shifted to Hindon.
NetworkThoughts 