Air taxi stopped within 7 months: Visibility rule of 5 thousand meters came in the way, operator said – DGCA and airport authority are not getting support

Air taxis wait to take off due to poor visibility at the runway of Maharaja Agrasen Airport in Hisar.

Hisar’s Maharaja Agrasen International Airport has become an airport without air service. Now passengers will not be able to get any air service from this airport. Air taxi service running from Hisar on three different routes has been stopped within 7 months. On the one hand, the rule of visibility of 5 thousand meters came in the way behind the closure of this service, while the operator of this startup has accused the DGCA and the airport authority of not cooperating.

Let us inform that on January 14 this year, Chief Minister Manohar Lal had flagged off the air taxi on Chandigarh to Hisar route. It was then claimed that this air service is the first air taxi service in the country. At that time a plan to run air taxis on 35 routes in the country was proposed after Hisar-Chandigarh. At present, air taxi service was running from Hisar to Chandigarh, Dharamshala and Dehradun routes. Five people including the pilot can travel in this air taxi. Till now air taxi service was running from Maharaja International Airport on Chandigarh, Dharamshala, Dehradun route. 1500 fare was charged per passenger in air taxi and the flight reached Chandigarh in 40 minutes.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal inaugurating the Air Taxi Service. -file photo

The rule of five thousand meters of visibility came in the way

Varun Suhag, operator of air taxi service in Hisar, told that when this taxi service was started, there was a rule of 1500 meters visibility, which has been changed to 5000 meters sometime back. The weather of Hisar is not such that it has a visibility of 5000 meters at all times, due to which they were facing problems in operating the air taxi. He wrote several times to the ministry, DGCA and airport authority to give exemption to this rule for air taxi, but no cooperation was received. He has been trying for three months to solve this problem, but he could not get any exemption. He had sent his complaint in this regard in April itself. According to Suhag, DGCA and airport authority officers are putting more obstacles in their work than cooperating.

70% of flights were getting canceled continuously, people were also getting upset

Varun Suhag told that there were enough passengers from Hisar airport to Chandigarh, Dehradun, Dharamshala but 70% flights per month were getting canceled due to visibility rule. Six flights operate at Hisar airport every day. 180 flights were to be operated in a month, but only 60 could be operated. People from far and wide used to come and sit in air taxis at the airport. Even after waiting for several hours, they were not allowed to fly, due to which the passengers were also getting upset. Apart from this, due to non-operation of scheduled flights, their expenses were also increasing continuously, due to which they have stopped operating air taxi service on all routes.

Hisar airport complex, where this taxi service was started.

The foundation stone for the expansion of the runway was laid on October 27.

On October 27, 2020, Chief Minister Manohar Lal had laid the foundation stone for the runway expansion work of Hisar airport. After this, recently on July 26, it was announced to name the airport after Maharaja Agrasen.