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“Currently, the Air Force has approved 32 flights for daily operations. Earlier, we had 31 approved flights but the airlines were operating only 28. We will see a marginal increase in revenue now,” said J P Mathur, officiating airport director. In the financial year ending last march, the AAI revenue for Pune was about Rs 26 crore. Mathur said that the revenue was bound to increase in future if airlines increased operations.
On Thursday, the AAI resumed full-fledged operations. However, it will be shut for maintenance from 11 am to 5 pm on all Saturdays and a morning slot between 8 am to 10.30 am has been allotted to the Air Force as a “green period for fighter planes.” On the first day, AAI said that the flight schedules were smooth and on time.
Meanwhile, the AAI is also encouraging airlines to take up night slots for international flights. There are no domestic flights scheduled at night after the last flight at 11.15 pm and before 6.15 am in the morning. “As per the customs rules, the passengers of domestic and international passengers should be kept separate. So if there is a domestic flight on schedule, we have to put international flight passengers on hold or the other way round. Passengers end up cribbing. As there are free slots at night, we would prefer to have international flights at this time,” Mathur said. While the runway repair work is completed, the terminal expansion plan is going on to accommodate more passengers; arguably a sizeable chunk of this would be flying international.
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