Why lunch in Darjeeling will be a stretch

The area inside Calcutta airport where 15 remote parking bays will come up by September

Sanjay Mandal, TT, Jan 24, 2018, Dum Dum: The city airport does not have enough night-parking facilities for airlines to operate more flights at dawn, making it difficult for a traveller to reach even Darjeeling in time for lunch on the same day.

The earliest flight to Bagdogra in Siliguri is at 10.50am, and the airfare is sometimes almost double that for an afternoon take-off, according to travel operators.

Since all other flights are in the second half of the day, it means tourists visiting Darjeeling or Sikkim are often forced to spend a night in Siliguri or take the undesirable option of a hill journey that stretches well past dusk.

There are either no morning flights or fewer than needed to several other destinations because the airport cannot meet the demand for night parking.Several airlines have complained about losing out on business since the majority of passengers, especially business travellers, prefer early flights. A morning flight invariably requires an airline to park the aircraft at the point of origin the previous night.

The airport has 50 bays, of which around 35 are used for night parking, officials said. On an average, there are about 425 flights to and from the city. The current annual growth rate is nearly 18 per cent, increasing the need for more bays.

Aircraft parked at the available bays operate mostly on the Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Guwahati and Port Blair sectors.

The Jet Airways aircraft that flies to Bagdogra in the afternoon does duty on the Delhi-Calcutta sector before taking off for north Bengal as a separate flight. "One of our main issues is not having enough night parking bays here. Otherwise, we could have had a morning flight to Bagdogra and completed the return journey before noon," a Jet official said.

AirAsia India is battling the same problem. The airline has been allotted one bay for night parking.

Sources in AirAsia said the airline's senior management had approached the airport authorities and even chief minister Mamata Banerjee - the state government has no stake in the airport - for more night parking slots.

Airport director Atul Dixit said 15 remote parking bays were being built on the eastern side of the terminal. The project is to be completed by September 2018.