The Airports Authority of India (AAI) Sunday announced that Agartala will soon get a direct flight to Bagdogra in West Bengal. The Bagdogra airport is located 68 km from Darjeeling, one of the most popular hill stations in the country.
In addition, the Agartala-Silchar flight service will resume on October 28 after being discontinued nearly 30 years ago. The flight, to be run by IndiGo, will operate every Tuesday and Friday.
S Haokip Jempu, General Manager, AAI (Agartala), said the inaugural Air India Express Agartala-Bagdogra flight will take off from the Maharaja Bir Bikram (MBB) Airport in the Tripura capital.
After the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International (LGBI) Airport in Guwahati, MBB Airport is the busiest in the Northeast. However, MBB Airport does not have international status yet. Apart from LGBI Airport, the only international airport in the Northeast is the Bir Tikendrajit International Airport in Imphal.
At present, Agartala has flight services to Kolkata, Imphal, Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai.
Historian and writer Pannalal Roy said MBB Airport’s history dates back to 1942, when it was built as a military airstrip on land donated by the then king of Tripura, Maharaja Bir Bikram Manikya Bahadur, to help Allied powers in the Second World War. He added that Japanese fighter planes bombarded Agartala airport twice in 1943. The airport was renamed after the Maharaja in July 2018.
