NEW DELHI: Two years after the Supreme Court succeeded in getting Shimla air linked with Delhi and Chandigarh, the Meghalaya high court attempted to emulate it by directing private airlines and the civil aviation ministry to start passenger flights from the state’s Umroi airport to Delhi and other metro cities.Indigo and Jet Airways moved the apex court on Wednesday challenging aDecember 7 order of the high court asking the ministry and private airlines to get back in a week with a firm date for commencement of flights from Umroi airport. The high court asked the civil aviation secretary, chairman of Airports Authority of India and CEOs/CMDs of private airlines Go Air, Vistara, IndiGo and Jet Airways to be present in court on December 14 if they failed to fix a date for start of passenger flights from Umroi.Appearing for IndiGo, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi told a bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph that the airport was not fully ready to handle passenger traffic and landing of aircraft. Moreover, it lacked adequate fire-fighting facilities, he added, and told the court that flights could not be started from Umroi airport, which is around 30 km from capital Shillong The bench agreed to hear the petition by IndiGo and Jet Airways on Thursday. Jet Airways, through advocate Gautam Talukdar, said that the airline was conforming to the rules and regulations laid down by the civil aviation ministry, which included providing flights to the north-eastern region under the Route Dispersal Guidelines, which was issued on August 8, 2016.“Petitioner is well within its rights to first assess the commercial viability of commencing operations from Umroi airport before taking a decision,” Jet Airways said and termed the high court order a violation of its fundamental right to carry out a particular lawful business. Jet said it had a limited fleet engaged in domestic and international routes to ensure its commercial viability and it would not be possible for it to start operations from Umroi airport.