Pune: There was significant delay in boarding and deboarding of flights at the Pune airport during the intervening night (between 10 pm and 2 am) of November 4 and 5, as there were too many flights arriving and departing at night. Hence, passengers were forced to wait.

This has been a frequent scenario at the city airport as there has been high traffic at night due to fewer slots for civil air traffic in the morning.

Some passengers claimed they were forced to wait inside the terminal building or aircraft for over an hour because their aircraft were not parked in the apron area. 

The airport authorities claimed the number of parking bays would increase to 13 (from eight) following expansion of the airport, including its apron area. They claimed that adjusting 170 flight movements daily with a small apron area and just eight bays was a daunting task.

According to sources at the Pune airport, there has been an increase in number of flights at night of late, which caused the delay in parking aircraft.

“The expansion of the airport will take time. Around seven flights were added recently. It has been observed that four-five flights land in 5-10 minutes’ interval. We are planning to accommodate all flights at the apron area,” said a senior official at the 
Pune airport.

S Ramnath Iyer, a passenger, who was waiting at the airport to board an Indigo flight, told Sakal Times, “We completed all boarding formalities on time. But our airplane was not seen in the apron at the boarding time. An announcement was made by the airline that passengers had to wait for half-an-hour as there were already some other planes in the apron area. We saw five planes in the bay area. We were forced to wait for some time.”

Another passenger, Vaibhav Vardhan, said, “Several flights were delayed because of the unavailability of parking space. With the delay, the passenger volume increased at the terminal. There was no place to sit or stand. My flight got delayed by an hour. This, according to me, is lack of management on the part of 
the authorities.”

The source said, “The airport is located on defence land. They (Air Force) are not allowing airlines to start morning flights. As a civil enclave, we are running airport 24x7. We cannot give permission to airlines to start flights in the morning.”

Aviation expert and analyst Dhairyashil Vandekar said the apron control of the airport required proper management. 

“If an aircraft is on schedule, it should be given priority to land and provided a parking bay. If any flight was on schedule and had to wait with passengers, it means the earlier flights were delayed and occupying the bays. This is poor management, as it is the job of the authorities at the airport to manage the slots,” he said.