Air travellers deal with rescheduling as night operations at Lohegaon airport shut down
This has led to a lot of confusion among travel agencies who face the ire of passengers who have booked tour packages
Lohegaon airport’s tarmac is undergoing re-carpeting, which will go on for a year’s time.
This has led to a lot of confusion among travel agencies who face the ire of passengers who have booked tour packages.
Agents have also said that this will lead to a major blow to the aviation industry which has faced maximum losses in the lockdown and is now hoping to revive, but due to this work, will continue to suffer.
Nilesh Bhansali, director of Travel Agents’ Association, Pune (TAAP) said, “This work could have been done when the pandemic was announced and the airstrip was completely shut. People have been frustrated in the lockdown and now want to travel. We have multiple bookings for Goa from Pune but we do not have a direct flight now. A road trip to Goa would probably take about 10-12 hours and a flight trip takes about 45 minutes. However, now there is no direct flight and now people have to opt for connecting flights to either Ahmedabad or Hyderabad which is about five-six hours depending on when the connecting flight is. Also, considering the business travel from Pune to Bengaluru and Delhi which was earlier in the wee hours, now it is almost impossible.”
He explained that earlier an early morning flight from Pune to Bengaluru would leave at 4am and reach by 5am and so the person could go to the city, finish his or her work and then take a flight back to the city.
“However, this is not possible now as the flight timings have been restricted from 8am to 8pm, including take-off and landing. Bengaluru Delhi routes have been affected the most due to this,” Bhansali added.
Airport director Kuldeep Singh said, “The transition from night flight operations to day operations has been smooth. Passengers are happy about these timings and none of the flights has been cancelled. We operated about 13-15 flights at night which have all been rescheduled and none of them has been cancelled. This would not affect the Vande Bharat flights also which have been scheduled till December as they did not have any fixed schedule.”
The official Twitter handle of Pune airport tweeted, “As per the flight schedule approved by DGCA up to 27th Mar 2021, only flights between 08:00am to 08:00pm are approved. Hence there are no flights between 08:00pm to 08:00am. These timings for flight operations between 08:00am to 08:00pm is likely to continue until October 2021.”
The airport authority has said that this rescheduling has been done smoothly and that there is no cancellation of any flights, agents defer.
Rohit Malusure, a travel agent who runs the Tourism Cafe said, “We are still getting updated schedules from the flight operators and even today the various websites of flight operators do show night flights which are likely to be cancelled. The passengers get last-minute messages and so it is a big mess especially when further planning is affected in case of connecting flights or the planned journey ahead. For example, I had a client who had to go to Chennai and from there go to Tirupati. They got a message that their flight is cancelled only a day before their flight. Yesterday evening we had to completely revamp the entire schedule from hotel bookings to their road travel from Chennai to Tirupati. We are not sure whether to take future bookings or not because of this uncertainty. All this has exposed the lack of coordination between flight operators and airport authority.”