Airport type Public Elevation AMSL 478 ft / 146 m Code IXW Phone 0657 230 6775 | Operator TATA Steel 26/08 4,010 Elevation 146 m | |
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Address Airport Road, Sonari, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand 831011 | ||
Sonari airport jamshedpur
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.
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History
The aerodrome, which is spread over 25 acres, first opened in 1940.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.Since Air Deccan and Kingfisher operated larger ATR 42 and ATR 72 aircraft respectively, operations became unviable.Jet Airways has discontinued its services to Kolkata & Patna due to commercial unviability and Jet Airways has also terminated its service to Jharkhand's only other airport Birsa Munda Airport.
New Airports
Tata Steel has proposed a new airport named Tata steel International airport for the city of Jamshedpur on 600 acres in the Gamharia 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.
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.