Years of Planning has finally bore fruit to Pondicherry Aviation and its People .Puducherry government has spend a major amount of money to make this project take life. An amount of Rs.18.95 crore was spent for land acquisition for building up the Airport and its service centers and another Rs.9.83 crore for construction of box culvert for the sewage pipe lines crossing the runway.
Airport center operations , services and training has been done by Orient Flight Service ,the aviation wing of Hindustan Group of Institutions in Pondicherry .Established in 1994, OFS is been approved by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Government of India.
Anand Jabob Verghese , the director of OFS and additional director of Hindustan group of Institution has told in his interview that thought the preference of Aeronautical Engineer has large scope of pay scale and work in this industry, he should also have some knowledge in other branches of Engineering be it mechanical, electrical or software according to today's shift in technology .
A private sector PATS( Pondicherry Aviation and Travel Services ) run by Mr Srivivasan Yadav , is a flight service center operating at Pondicherry airport helps in providing recruitment and training of support staff including flight planning services and customer services .
Contact of PATS (as from Google sites)- Tel: 0413-2256281 , 9790032778
This move is expected to revive the economic growth and there by increase the travel potential in Pondicherry City making the already acclaimed Tourist Spot more stronger
Tourism minister of Puducherry, P Rajavelu has already revealed that Spice Jet Airlines will operate flights from Puducherry to Bangalore from October 10, 2011 through The Times of India Journal . "The Spice Jet Airlines has got clearance from the Ministry of Civil Aviation to operate flights from Puducherry to Bangalore from 10th October 2011," he said.
On Oct 17,2012, he also added in an informal chat with the news-person that in the present condition only small size aircrafts could be operated and hence, the administration was holding talks with institutions such as Spicejets, Kingfisher etc as per Chennai Online Journal
On Oct 17,2012, he also added in an informal chat with the news-person that in the present condition only small size aircrafts could be operated and hence, the administration was holding talks with institutions such as Spicejets, Kingfisher etc as per Chennai Online Journal
Chief Minister N Rangasamy said that the works on the terminal building has almost been completed and is likely to go on air in few months .He also added that Talks are on with certain private players including Jet Airways, Kingfisher and SpiceJet to operate the services - Source [ZeeNews]
According to sources from The Hindu, the airport expansion is done in two phases , with Phase 1 of extending the existing runway by 260 metres was taken up to enable landing of ATR type of aircraft along with ground support facilities and in Phase 2 , extension of an additional 1,100 meters of runway by acquiring 200 acres in neighbouring Tamil Nadu State limits to operate large jet aircraft.
Phase 1 has been completed to handle AAI type of landing and takeoff with a terminal building supposed to handle 300 passengers and is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
So owing to the facts from credible sources, the first flight to be operated by Spice Jet from Bangalore to Puducherry would be in the first week of December 2012
Operator : Spice Jet.
Pondicherry - Chennai - Bangalore.
Timings and other credible informations would be updated as when it is available