Pune: The Pune airport has recorded the highest daily flight movement even on Sunday with 220 commercial aircraft taking off and touching down.Last Sunday (Aug 2), the airport had recorded a total of 216 flight movements (108 departures and 108 arrivals).“Sunday is a holiday and the passenger traffic jumps up. With an increased passenger traffic, overbookings take place and airlines use more aircraft, resulting in utilisation of more slots. The same has been happening since two weeks now,” said Pune airport director Santosh Dhoke.Another airport official said compared to Sunday, the Notam (notice to airmen) on Saturday rests from 11am to 4pm during which commercial flights do not operate. “However, it is regular Notam of 9am to 11.30am on Sundays. With Sunday a holiday, the passenger traffic is more,” the official said.Recently, Union minister of state for civil aviation Murlidhar Mohol had said that weekends recording record number of flight movements, with the focus was on utilisation of maximum slots provided by Indian Air Force (IAF) to the airport. The airport has been granted a total of 235 slots by IAF of which 208 slots are occupied by different airlines.Mohol said priority will be given to expanding domestic and international flight services by fully utilising the additional slots made available at Pune airport through the cooperation of IAF. “Following the availability of additional slots, all airlines have been informed. Coordination with their headquarters is underway to rapidly initiate flights to new cities from Pune and to increase the frequency of flights on existing routes,” Mohol said.Aviation expert Dhairyashil Vandekar said passenger traffic was high during weekends starting from Friday evening until Monday morning. “However in Pune, due to the Saturday Notam hours, less number of flights operate. On Sunday, the same shoots up with airlines using their scheduled flights to the maximum based on the demand,” he said.
