Bilaspur Airport's Flight Future in Doubt: Summer Schedule Unreleased, Alliance Air Silent, Sangharsh Samiti Threatens Agitation

As India's summer flight season begins on March 30, Bilaspur's Bilasa Devi Kevat Airport has received no new flight announcements — Alliance Air has cut the Prayagraj route and added no new destinations, triggering public anger and renewed threats of protest from the city's airport advocacy committee.

The Schedule That Never Came

Every year, India's domestic aviation calendar pivots on two schedule changes — the winter schedule in October and the summer schedule effective March 30. For passengers at major airports, the summer schedule typically brings new routes, higher frequencies, and better connectivity. For Bilaspur — Chhattisgarh's second-largest city, a major industrial and administrative hub, and home to the South East Central Railway headquarters — the summer schedule of 2026 has brought nothing but silence.

As of March 23, Alliance Air — the only significant carrier operating at Bilaspur's Bilasa Devi Kevat Airport — has released its summer schedule without announcing a single new flight to or from the city. Worse, it has quietly cut the frequency on the Prayagraj route — one of Bilaspur's most utilised connections — leaving a city of over a million people with fewer air links than it had entering summer 2025.

What Bilaspur Currently Has — And What It Is Losing

Bilaspur Airport currently operates scheduled commercial flights to Delhi, Jabalpur, Kolkata, Prayagraj, and Jagdalpur — all operated by Alliance Air using ATR 72 aircraft. FlyBig also runs a seasonal Bilaspur–Ambikapur route between March and May. The total number of weekly departures from the airport is modest by any standard for a city of Bilaspur's size and economic significance.

The Prayagraj route — connecting Bilaspur to one of Uttar Pradesh's major pilgrimage and commercial hubs — has now been cut in the new summer schedule. No replacement route has been announced. No additional frequency has been added to any existing route. For passengers who depended on the Prayagraj connection for Kashi-Prayagraj pilgrimage travel, business, and family visits, the cut is a direct and tangible loss.

The Sangharsh Samiti's Warning

The Bilaspur Airport Sangharsh Samiti — a citizen advocacy committee that has been pushing for expanded air connectivity at Bilaspur for years — has responded to the summer schedule silence with a sharp warning. Committee leaders confirmed they have taken serious note of Alliance Air's failure to add new routes or restore previously operated connections, and have threatened a public agitation if the situation does not improve before the summer schedule goes into effect on March 30.

The committee has consistently demanded the restoration of the Bilaspur–Bhopal route — a connection that was operated briefly and then suspended, cutting off one of the most commercially logical domestic routes in Chhattisgarh. They have also demanded new direct flights to Mumbai and Hyderabad — two destinations with significant business and diaspora traffic from the Bilaspur region. Neither demand has been addressed in the 2026 summer schedule.

The Deeper Problem: Alliance Air's Structural Crisis

The silence from Alliance Air on Bilaspur's summer schedule is not simply an oversight or a scheduling decision. It reflects a deeper structural vulnerability that the airline — and Bilaspur — has been navigating for years. Alliance Air operates a limited fleet of ATR 72 aircraft and has faced repeated operational challenges including aircraft groundings, crew shortages, and financial pressure. Its network at Bilaspur has been characterised by inconsistency — routes announced, then suspended; frequencies promised, then cut.

The airline's difficulties have created a vicious cycle at Bilaspur. Inconsistent service discourages corporate travel managers and regular flyers from committing to routes, which depresses load factors, which makes the routes financially marginal for the airline, which leads to further cuts. Breaking this cycle requires either a new carrier entering the market or a credible commitment from Alliance Air backed by government support — neither of which appears imminent.

UDAN Promises, Ground Reality

Bilaspur Airport is a beneficiary of the central government's UDAN — Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik — regional connectivity scheme, which subsidises operations on underserved routes to make air travel accessible to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. The scheme has brought flights to Bilaspur that would otherwise not exist commercially. But UDAN's benefits are limited by the availability of willing airline operators and by the scheme's own budgetary constraints.

The gap between UDAN's stated ambition — connecting every significant Indian city to the national aviation network — and the ground reality at airports like Bilaspur is one of the most persistent failures of India's regional aviation policy. A city with Bilaspur's industrial base, railway significance, educational institutions, and population density deserves a functioning air hub — not a two-runway airport with six weekly departures operated by a single troubled carrier.

What Bilaspur Deserves

The aviation gap at Bilaspur is ultimately an economic justice issue. The city's business community — coal, steel, power, and logistics industries anchored in the Bilaspur–Korba–Raigarh industrial corridor — is forced to route travel through Raipur, adding hours of road travel to every journey. Medical tourism, education, and family travel that should be simple city-to-city air connections are instead day-long ordeals. The city's growth trajectory is being limited, in part, by the failure of its aviation infrastructure to keep pace with its economic profile.

The Sangharsh Samiti's agitation threat is not merely civic frustration. It is a legitimate demand from a city that has been waiting, patiently and then less patiently, for the connectivity it was promised and needs.

What Comes Next

The summer schedule takes effect on March 30 — one week away. If Alliance Air does not announce any additions to Bilaspur's network before that date, the Sangharsh Samiti has indicated it will move to public protest. Separately, the Chhattisgarh state government and Bilaspur's elected representatives are expected to escalate the matter with the Ministry of Civil Aviation — though similar escalations in the past have produced announcements that were subsequently not implemented.

The city is watching. And the runway at Bilasa Devi Kevat Airport — 2,000 metres long, capable of handling ATR 72 aircraft and more — continues to wait for the traffic it was built to serve.