Sikkim’s lone Member of Parliament (MP) in Rajya Sabha, Dorjee Tshering Lepcha, on Monday has raised the issue of Pakyong Airport operations and frequent flight cancellations in the Parliament.
MP Lepcha in an Unstarred Question, numbered 38, had seeked answer from the Union Civil Aviation Ministry over if the Pakyong Airport was being “marred by flight cancellations due to poor visibility particularly during Monsoon season”.
And if it was the case what efforts were being “made by the Government to improve potential operations of the Pakyong Airport in low visibility”?.
Responding to MP Lepcha’s queries, Union Minister of State in Ministry of Civil Aviation, Murlidhar Mohol, answered in writing that the airport was licensed as a Visual Flight Rules (VFR) aerodrome which could “sustain flight operations at or above 5 kilometres of ground visibility”.
However, as per MoS, visibility often dropped to 500 meters or less during monsoon season, resulting in substantial difficulties for flight operations under Visual Meteorological Condition (VMC).
Meanwhile, Required Navigation Performance (RNP) approach was implemented at the airport in January 2021 which had significantly reduced the visibility criteria to 2400 meters, resulting in a notable 75% less flight cancellations, said MoS.
Additionally, MP Lepcha had queried if the Government was considering of conducting a “feasibility study for installation of GAGAN based navigation system and/or Instrument Landing System (ILS)”, at the airport.
GAGAN or GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation is a satellite-based augmentation system developed by ISRO for accurate and reliable GPS signals in the country.
To which MoS answered by stating that the feasibility study for installation of GAGAN based navigation system was conducted by the Ministry which had recommended “the removal or cutting of adjacent hilly terrain”.
“The installation of the Instrument Landing System (ILS) at Pakyong Airport is limited by space availability, hilly terrain, and the need for additional land along with the cutting of hills and trees”, added MoS.
