The first flight to the newly constructed Hisar airport in Haryana from Chandigarh was flagged off on 14 January 2021 under the Regional Connectivity Scheme – Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (RCS-UDAN) of the government of India.
The flight was flagged off by Chief Minister of Haryana Manohar Lal Khattar. The flagging-off marks operationalisation of 54th airport under the UDAN scheme.
Till date 307 routes and 54 airports including five heliports and two water aerodromes have been operationalised under the UDAN scheme.
Belonging to the government of Haryana, Hisar airport is a public licensed airport that is suitable for 18 seat type aircraft. The development of Hisar airport was undertaken by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA).
Subsequently, the Centre had sanctioned Rs 28.60 crore for development of the interim civil aviation operations.
The land was handed over to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for upgradation and development of Hisar airport.
The upgrade included the construction of the new terminal building, hangars, strengthening of the runway, installation of night-flying equipment, ATC, security equipment, etc at Hisar airport.
The airline Aviation Connectivity & Infrastructure Developers (Air Taxi) was awarded the Hisar–Chandigarh-Hisar route under the UDAN 4 bidding process.
The airline has become the first startup airline of the country to assist the nation with Air Taxi services.
These UDAN flights will reduce journey time between Hisar to Chandigarh from 4.50 hours to 45 minutes journey at an affordable fare since financial incentives in the form of viability gap funding (VGF) is being provided from the Centre, state governments and airport operators to selected airlines to encourage operations from unserved and underserved airports under the scheme.