Pune: The Pune airport will become operational 24×7 on Thursday with flights starting as early as 6.15 am. However, no civilian flights will be allowed from 8 am to 10.30 am, a time slot that has been reserved as a “green period for low-level flying fighter planes of Indian Air Force.” The airport will also face a shutdown every Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm for routine maintenance.

While the frequency of some domestic flights are slated to go up, to the dismay of international passengers, the frequency of the Pune-Dubai flight – the lone international flight operating from the city – is to come down to two days a week. Presently, the Pune-Dubai flight operates four days a week.

“For operational reasons, the Pune-Dubai flight will be there only on Tuesday and Sunday starting next week,” said Dhairyasheel Vandekar, area marketing manager, Air India. This means there will be no more Pune-Dubai flights on Thursday and Saturday.

“This week, the Thursday flight will be operational, but henceforth as the airport will be closed from 11 am to 5 pm on every Saturday, there will be no flight on Saturday,” said Vandekar.

Also, there are no plans as of now to restart the Pune-Singapore flight that was suspended in October 2007.

Meanwhile, the city will get more flights on the domestic circuit. “Kingfisher Airlines will add four extra services by way of Pune-Delhi, Pune-Ahmedabad and two Pune-Bangalore daily flights. We have also proposed fresh Pune-Hyderabad and Pune-Indore as also one more Pune-Bangalore flight,” said a Kingfisher officer.

Jet Airways has already announced an additional Pune-Chennai direct daily flight from Thursday. “We have also plans to start Hyderabad and Ahmedabad flights in the near future,” said a Jet Airways officer.

“Spicejet has no plans to add any destination at the moment, but we are contemplating additional morning flights to Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore, which will return in the evening,” said Digvijay Wala, airport manager, Spicejet.

According to J P Mathur, officiating director, Pune airport, there were no requests from any airline to start international flights except Lufthansa, which would start Pune-Frankfurt flight from July 1. “Paramount Airlines is considering to start some domestic flights from Pune, but no official request has been made so far,” he said.

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