No night flights at Pune airport from October 26

At the Lohegaon Airport authority committee meeting held on Tuesday, chaired by Pune’s member of parliament (MP), Girish Bapat of the BJP, expanding cargo capacity emerged as a top priority

All 13 flights scheduled between 8:00 pm and 8:00 am at Pune’s Lohegaon airport will now be rescheduled to during the day, because the Indian Airforce will re-carpet the runway from October 26.

Flights at Pune’s Lohegaon airport will now be rescheduled to during the day (HT PHOTO)

Airport director Kuldeep Singh did say that none of the flights will be cancelled. “There are a total of 13 flights which were scheduled at night and all of which have been shifted to the day time. We have 12 hours with us and with social distancing norms we can operate about four flights in an hour. So currently, we have 42 flights and the capacity to run 48 flights. We cannot squeeze in more flights since we have to follow social distancing norms. Flight operations will continue only from 8am to 8pm.”

At the Lohegaon Airport authority committee meeting held on Tuesday, chaired by Pune’s member of parliament (MP), Girish Bapat of the BJP, expanding cargo capacity emerged as a top priority.

Bapat said, “We are trying hard to acquire the land for a cargo facility. Currently, local industries, not just from Pune, but nearby districts including Satara and Ahmednagar, transport their goods to Mumbai airport. If Pune’s cargo facility is improved we can tap into a daily business of about Rs 2.5 crore in freight. The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, which was also part of the meeting, said that with an increased cargo facility there can be a trade increase of about 500 tonnes.”

Bapat also said that it is crucial to improve cargo from Pune airport given the fact that Pune could be supplying a Covid-19 vaccine to the world in the future.

Stating that Covid-19 has impacted air travel drastically, director Singh said, “In 2018-19 we had a passenger footfall of 9 million at the peak, but in Jan-Feb 2020 we saw a footfall of only 2,000-3,000. Until September, we saw about 1.63 lakh passengers and 1,948 flights operated from Pune.”

Bapat added, “We are trying to get to more land acquired from the air force to increase the parking facility. Currently, only seven planes can be parked, which will be increased to 14 flights, which will benefit travellers and flight operators.”

Bapat further said that land acquisition talks are on with the defence ministry, but after the pandemic struck, meetings could not be held.