“The airport will be operational for 24 hours from May 16 and it will accommodate all the 35 flights, which were operational before the partial closure,” said J P Mathur, deputy general manager, Pune Airport. He said the Indian Air Force had already communicated this to Airports Authority of India (AAI). “They have also informed that on every Saturday the airport would have to be shut down from 11 am to 5.30 pm for the maintenance work of the runway,” he said.
It may be noted that the air traffic control (ATC) and runway at the Pune airport is controlled by the Air Force. “There will also be a green period from 8 am to 10.30 am every day for the low level flying of the fighter planes,” said Mathur. That means these two-and-a- half hours too will not be available for the civilian planes.
Presently, the airport is working with the restricted watch hours — from 10.30 am to 5.30 pm — because of the ongoing recarpeting work of the runway. The recarpeting work is going on from September 15, 2007.
The airport came to a stand still for 15 days (from February 12 to 26) to cater to critical runway work. Besides cancelled flights, the airline companies had to bear severe revenue losses because of the slowdown in the cargo traffic. While the Pune-Dubai international flight was cut down to only four days instead of daily operations, the Pune-Singapore flight was cancelled due to non-availability of slots.
“The airline companies have been already informed about the decision. We will have to again reschedule our flights from May 16. As the airport will not be available from 11 am to 5 pm on Saturdays, we will also have to reschedule the Dubai flight, which is currently operating at 3 pm on Saturday,” said Dhairyasheel Vandekar, area marketing manager, Air India.
“The head office will soon take a decision about restarting the Singapore flight,” he added.