Chandigarh International Airport inches closer to 24x7 operations

Come March 29, flight to Mumbai to take off at 4:50am, Goa flight last to land at 2:10am

Moving towards 24x7 operations, Chandigarh International Airport has increased the watch hours from March 29, when the summer schedule kicks in.

Now, the first flight will depart as early as 4:50am and the operations will continue till 2:10am, the time at which the recently introduced Goa flight lands here.

It is the flight to Mumbai, being operated by Indigo, that will take off at 4:50am. Earlier, the flight operations were restricted between 7am and 8:40pm. At night, the airport remained closed for civil aviation, but now the runway will remain open for both domestic and international flights.

The summer schedule will also take the number of flights operating from the airport up from 32 to 65, with new destinations, including Goa, Patna and Lucknow added to the roster in the past few days.

“Three more flights will be introduced this month. We are getting direct connectivity to Hyderabad by March 10, we have already started Lucknow flight on March 5, and by March 15, we are getting another flight to Pune,” said airport chief executive officer (CEO) Ajay Kumar Bhardwaj.