India’s civil aviation regulator has granted approval for an airport in eastern India to be used for commercial flights and regional airline IndiaOne Air plans to operate there.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) says it has granted Jeypore Airport a license to handle scheduled commercial flights under the UDAN Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS).  The airport, which has a 914m-long (3,000ft) runway is reportedly owned and operated by the eastern Indian state of Odisha.

The chief minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik, responded to the news by telling local media that IndiaOne Air plans to launch a commercial air service soon linking Jeypore Airport to Bhubaneswar and that the airline had completed a trial flight earlier this year. The airline operates Cessna Caravans.

Bhubaneswar has an international airport and is Odisha’s state capital while Jeypore is a large and historical town about 500km further south that was once the capital of an Indian kingdom.