Day One: flights grounded at Pune airport

The day one of the fortnight-long closure of Pune airport, on the account of necessary renovation work...

The day one of the fortnight-long closure of Pune airport, on the account of necessary renovation work, left a deserted look on the premises as no flights took off today. There were no passengers, no booking office staff and the vehicle parking lot drew a blank. Yet the Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials looked a lot busy as they took “this opportunity to clear the backlog”.

As the airline companies are using the period for maintenance of equipment and staff training, the AAI staffers, except some who have planned holidays, are also all geared up for some hard work. “We will clear backlog which is piling up,” said J P Mathur, Deputy General Manager of the airport. “Besides clearing the pending paper work, we have to do some maintenance work like repairing of trolleys and X-ray machines,” he said.

“In this period, the expansion work of the AAI building will continue,” said an official from the office of Deepak Shastri, the airport Director. “The expansion on the east and west of the airport is going on and it will speed up, “ he added.

Story continues below this ad

About the nature of critical work for which the airport is closed, Mathur said, “The recarpeting of the runway, being done by the Air Force which maintains it, is going on for quite sometime. The corners of the runway were repaired in the initial stages and now the work of its main part is going on. It is to be done with precision and as per specifications. For the lighting alongside the runway, the cables have to be re-arranged simultaneously. As this whole work is very critical and requires accuracy, for the safety purpose the airport is closed.”

Besides the runway repairs, eight parking bays are already constructed, Mathur said. “That means now eight aircraft can be parked at a time on the airport. Previously, the capacity was for four. As the parking bases are increased, we can handle the operations more smoothly,” he said. The operations at the airport are completely shut till February 26 for the recarpeting of the runway.