International flight ops from Pune remain stagnant

Pune: Six years down the line, the prospect of any further increase in the number of international flight services from the city's Lohegaon airport appear fairly dim despite the interest shown by a few airlines in starting their services.
Lack of adequate infrastructure and space at the airport remains a major impediment while issues like the long-drawn proposal for extension of the runway are also seen as the key factors behind this slow progress. Not to mention, the state government's failure to push the proposed international airport project for the city beyond papers.
It was on December 12, 2005 that the first international flight from Pune to Dubai took off amid much fanfare and with a promise to put the city on the global air map in the true sense.
While the service to Dubai was operated by Air India (AI), the then national domestic carrier Indian started Pune-Singapore flight service on December 13, 2005. The service to Singapore remained operational till September 15, 2007 when it was suspended owing to operational reasons and never took off thereafter.
In June 2008, German airline Lufthansa introduced Pune-Frankfurt direct flights and the airport has since been handling direct flights to Dubai (now run by AI subsidiary Air India Express) and to Frankfurt, thrice and four-days a week, respectively.
13/12/11 Times of India

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: airports Dec 2011, Foreign Dec 2011