April 21, 2012: Ministry of defense denies permission to Air Arabia, the first airlines that wanted to fly international flights from Chandigarh Airport.
Without providing any reason, MOD simply stated in a letter sent to the airlines that they have objection to it and thus permission has not been granted. The airline approached Civil Aviation, Punjab afterwards who stated that they would take up the issue directly with MOD.
Air Arabia was quite disappointed and are now waiting for Punjab government to sort out the matter. It looks like international flights will only be possible after the Mohali International Airport has been constructed. Chandigarh Airport had spent around Rs. 10 crore to upgrade and prepare the airport to handle international flights. The rest of the formalities had already been completed and were just waiting for MOD to provide their approval.
This news will come as a shock for a lot of passengers who had been waiting for international flights to start from Chandigarh. One big question that ministry of defense needs to answer is: "You could have done this two years ago. Why now after so much has happened already?" It doesn't really make sense.