Transportation
City Airport to witness its first direct international flight today
From 26th April 2017, the Biju Patnaik International Airport will witness the take-off of its first direct international flight. The maiden flight will be commenced by the budget airline Air Asia which will fly to Kuala Lumpur at 11.55 pm. The airline is scheduled to fly four times a week, that is on, Monday, Wednesdays, Friday and Sunday. This is consequent upon the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) which was signed between the state government and the airline in February. One of the major stakeholders of this initiative is the tourism department. The MoA is based on the Viability Gap Funding (VGF) model, as per which the tourism department will compensate the airline if the minimum number of seats (as agreed in MoA) goes vacant. The VGF (also called subsidy) per trip has been calculated to be around Rs 2 lakh.
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