Improved landing technology to boost Bagdogra flights, tourism

Tamaghna Banerjee | TNN | Mar 28, 2018,KOLKATA: Bagdogra airport is all set to get a fillip with the commissioning of Category II Instrument Landing System (CAT II ILS) on Thursday. The technology allows flights to operate till visibility drops below 350m. At present, flights require a visibility range of 1,200m to land at the airport.

Officials at the airport are hopeful the new system, to be used by civil flights from March 29, will encourage airlines to operate early morning and late evening flights as fog will no longer be a deterrent on most days. At present, the earliest fight from Kolkata is at 10.50am, which reaches Bagdogra at noon. This will, in turn, boost tourism in the region. Tourists can travel from Bagdogra to Darjeeling or Gangtok after an early arrival at Bagdogra. Similarly, on their way back, they can start from the Hills at a decent hour to reach for the evening flight. aw7

ILS provides precision lateral and vertical guidance to aircraft approaching and landing on a runway, using a combination of radio signals and high-intensity lighting arrays to enable a safe landing during reduced visibility due to fog. Last year, operations were shut for seven days in the last week of December and first week of January, forcing the cancellation of 140 flights and inconveniencing 22,000 passengers. 

The Bagdogra airport has seen a massive surge in the number of flights and passengers alike over the past few years. In the current fiscal, the number of passengers crossed 22 lakh on Monday.

Work on the project started in November 2016 and was completed in January 2017. Calibration of the instruments using test flights was carried out in June 2017. So far, only defence flights had been using it.

In the summer schedule, the number of flights has increased from 22 to 26, an all-time high ahead of the busy tourist season. Apart from multiple flights to Delhi, Kolkata and Guwahati this summer, there are two daily direct connections to Mumbai and one to Bengaluru.

The highest number of connections are to Delhi at 10, Kolkata has nine and Guwahati has four flights. At present, there Kolkata and Bagdogra have seven daily flights.