Sonari Airport


Sonari Airport is a public airport located in Jamshedpur, in the state of Jharkhand, India.

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 Kingfisher Airlines and MDLR Airlines which discontinued services due to various reasons despite recording good loads. While MDLR ceased operations due to internal issues, Kingfisher had to discontinue services in November 2009 after load restrictions were imposed due to the short length of the runway. Since Kingfisher operated larger ATR 42 and ATR 72 aircraft respectively, operations became unviable. Scheduled flights were supposed to begin in 2018 under the government's UDAN scheme, however this did not take place..

New airport plans

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 aircraft. This is not possible at Sonari Airport. This plan was stuck until early 2017 but has since been revived.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the AAI and the Jharkhand government on 20 February 2012 for establishing a new airport in 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. A new location Dhalbhumgarh Airport, formerly an RAF World War II base, has also been proposed.

Airlines and destinations