Air Taxi closes down operations from Haryana's Hisar

Deepender Deswal

Tribune news service

Hisar, August 13

The Air Taxi service, which was launched with fanfare about seven months ago from the Hisar airport, has been closed down by the agency concerned due to the “problem” of low visibility.

Officials of the Air Taxi, said there had been no flight from Hisar after August 3. The operator agency said due to weather conditions, the visual flight rules of 5,000 m visibility could not be adhered to.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had launched the service on January 14, a start-up in the aviation sector. Air Taxi had got the rights for operating routes under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) – (RCS-UDAN) from Hisar to Chandigarh, Dehradun and Dharmshala.

A four-seater aircraft, Tecnam P2006T, including the pilot seat, was in operation for providing services. It had brought down the travel distance between Chandigarh and Hisar to 45 minutes at Rs 1,755 per seat.

The service had been started under the “Udaan” scheme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Varun Suhag, founder-director of the start-up firm, confirmed to mediapersons about the suspension of the air traffic.

He said about 70 per cent flights had got cancelled due to the visibility requirement of 5,000 m. "Passengers had to deboard aircraft after waiting for hours together in the hope of improvement of visibility. The DGCA condition of visibility of 5 km is very tough due to the prevailing weather conditions," he said.

The Hisar airport was recently named Maharaja Agresen airport by the state government.