Big planes may not land at Patna airport

New Delhi: Air connectivity between Patna and rest of India now runs the risk of getting severely crippled. Alarmed at Bihar government's alleged inaction in pruning trees on either side of the critical Patna airport's anyway small runway, aviation authorities are planning to reduce the available length of the about 6,500-feet-long for aircraft by half.
This would mean that the Airbus A-320 and Boeing 737 aircraft which currently fly there would no longer be able to operate to Patna and only smaller turboprops like ATRs would be able to land and take off from there -- that too with severe load penalty or in simple terms partially filled. Patna currently has 11 daily flights on A-320 and B-737 aircraft and sees an annual traffic of a million passengers on these planes. A shift to smaller planes could reduce the available seats to and from Patna by more than half.
09/07/12 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: airports Jul 2012