Pakyong hurry halts winter landings

SANJAY MANDAL, TT, 15 Jan 2019, Calcutta: How do you fly to Sikkim's Pakyong airport? Get down at Bagdogra and take a car! The new airport at 4,600ft, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September, could not operate for most of December because the equipment to allow planes land in low visibility cannot be installed now because of lack of timely planning, said officials.

SpiceJet operates the lone flight to Pakyong from Calcutta. But this winter, the flight had to be diverted frequently as it was unable to land at Pakyong because of visibility problems.

Airline sources said in December, out of 31 days, the flight from Calcutta had to be diverted to Bagdogra for 21 days, forcing passengers to take a car to Gangtok.

Some of the tourists from Calcutta alleged that while returning to Pakyong, they were told the flight was cancelled and had to pay nearly Rs 4,000 to come to Bagdogra to catch a flight to Calcutta.

In January too, there have already been several days when the flight could not land in Pakyong. SpiceJet sources said the passenger load factor has come down from about 88 per cent when it had started with much enthusiasm, to between 70 and 75 per cent.

Officials said there was no immediate solution to the visibility problem at Pakyong airport and flights would continue to get diverted.

Now, the minimum visibility required to land on the Pakyong's runway is five km or 5,000 m.

At Calcutta airport, after the installation of Category IIIB instrument landing system, a plane can land at a visibility of 50m.

"We need to install some navigation equipment that will bring down the minimum required visibility to 2.5 km (2,500 m). But it cannot be done An Indian Air Force aircraft at Pakyong airport. File picture because local villagers are not allowing us to do so," a senior official of the Airports Authority of India, said on Monday.

In absence of navigation aids, the pilots have to follow visual flight rules (VFR) for landing. Under the rules, a pilot can see where the aircraft is going and for that the weather has to be clear.

"It has to be upgraded and aircraft landing should be based on instruments," said an AAI official. He said Pakyong airport authorities need to install navigation aids like distance measuring equipment and very high frequency omni directional range.

AAI sources said since the airport had to be made operational in an hurry, those problems were not looked into.

"The installations should have been done before making the airport operational," said an official.

A Sikkim government official blamed the AAI for the villagers' objections to allow installation of the navigation equipment.

He said before the airport was operational, the top of a hill had to be sliced off to allow the 78-seater Bombardier Q400 series aircraft operated by SpiceJet, to land with full capacity. "It was done in such a manner that it caused landslides because of lack of proper plans and large parts of agricultural land were damaged. More than 60 households of the nearby village were affected and the state government had paid Rs 72 lakh as compensation," said the official. He said the plots of agricultural land are on the hill just above the runway where the instruments and lights have to be installed.

"Now, the villagers are not willing to allow airport authorities do any sort of intervention," he said.

The airport authorities have come up with a new plan so that there are no further damages to agricultural land, said sources. However, the villagers have moved court.

"We have formed a commission headed by a judge to make an assessment," said the state government official.