New Delhi: In a bid to connect airports and Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) of Northeast India, the Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya M. Scindia and the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh Pema Khandu today flagged off the first flight of Made in India HAL Dornier Do-228.
The flight will be operational from Dibrugarh in Assam to Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh and finally to Lilabari in Assam.
Alliance Air, a public sector airline company, had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), a Central Public Sector Unit under Ministry of Defence to operate Indian made Dornier aircraft, which is called Hindustan aircraft. This initiative is in line with the vision of Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi “AtmaNirbhar Bharat”. With this, Alliance Air becomes the first commercial airline to fly Indian made aircraft for civil operations.
The deployment of Indian made Do-228 will be done in a phased manner. In the first phase, 2 Hindustan aircrafts would be stationed at Dibrugarh, to connect Tezu, Pasighat and Ziro. In the second phase of the program, connectivity to Mechuka, Tuting and Vijoy Nagar has been planned. In the coming 15 days, the airline will connect Tezu and after that, within 30 days, air connectivity to Ziro would commence.
Speaking on the occasion, Scindia said, “In the last 70 years, 74 airports were developed but in last 7 years under the visionary leadership of our Prime Minister Narendra Modiji, we have created 66 new airports taking the total to 140 airports operational in the country. In Northeast, 9 airports were operationalized but today 15 airports are established in the last 7 years.”
