Sonari Airport

Sonari Airport सोनारी हवाई अड्डे
IATA: IXW – ICAO: VEJS
Summary
Airport type	Public
Operator	TATA Steel
Serves	Jamshedpur, Tatanagar
Location	Sonari (Jharkhand)
Elevation AMSL	478 ft / 146 m
Coordinates	22°48′49″N 086°10′5″E / 22.81361°N 86.16806°E
Map
IXW
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 26/08 4,010 1,222 Asphalt

Sonari Airport (IATA: IXW, ICAO: VEJS) is a public airport located in Jamshedpur, in the state of Jharkhand, India. The airport has unscheduled chartered flights from Kolkata.

History

The aerodrome, which is spread over 25 acres, first opened in 1940.^[1] There are no scheduled flights into this airport, however in the past years, the airport was served by airlines like Jet Airways,Kingfisher Red, Kingfisher Airlines, MDLR Airlines and Deccan Charters that discontinued services due to various reasons despite recording good loads. While MDLR and Deccan Charters ceased operations due to internal issues, Air Deccan and Kingfisher had to discontinue services in November 2009 after load restrictions were imposed due to the short length of the runway.^[2] Since Air Deccan and Kingfisher operated larger ATR 42 and ATR 72 aircraft respectively, operations became unviable.^[3]Jet Airways has discontinued its services toKolkata&Patna due to commercial unviability and Jet Airways has also terminated its ervice to Jharkhand's only other airport Birsa Munda Airport.

New Airports

Tata Steel has proposed a new airport for city of Jamshedpur on 600 acres in the Adityapur-Seraikela area. The airport is to have a 7,000 feet long runway and will be able to handle Airbus A320 flights. This is not possible on Sonari Airport.^[1]

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by the AAI and the Jharkhand government on 20 February 2012 for establishing a new airport for Jamshedpur. The state government will provide land to AAI for developing the airport that will initially support ATR-72 sized aircraft with options for later expansion when air traffic increases.^[4]

Airlines and destinations

Charter airlines

Airlines	Destinations
Deccan Aviation	Kolkata
North East Shuttles[5]	Kolkata

External links

• Airport information for VEJS at World Aero Data. Data current as of October 2006.

References

1. "TATA Steel and TRIL inks JV for Jamshedpur airport". Steelguru.com. 29 June 2011. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
2. "Suspension of Flights to Jamshedpur". Kingfisher Airlines Press Release. 11 November 2009. Retrieved 29 February 2012.
3. "Air services to Jamshedpur resume from Feb 15". Times of India. 17 February 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
4. "Jamshedpur, Bokaro to have airports soon; Airports Authority of India signs MoU". The Economic Times. 20 February 2012. Retrieved 20 February 2012.