The Hindu Business Line : Pune to get international flights by year-end

PUNE's residents and industry are in for an year-end bonanza after years of clamouring for it - the city's airport is finally due to kick off international flights, tentatively from mid-December.

According to information available off the record to the media here, the first international flight out of Pune will be Air India's Mumbai-Pune-Dubai-Pune flight, which is scheduled to take off on December 12.

Air India is also reliably learnt to be preparing to kick off a Pune-Hyderabad-Singapore flight, also towards the end of the year.

A senior level team of Air India officials recently visited Lohegaon airport here to check out the infrastructure and its readiness for hosting international flights, fuelling fresh speculation that the city is being developed as an international airport to decongest Mumbai's existing airport.

"The airline will make an official announcement on its plans for the Pune international flights by November 7," the Air India Director, Public Relations, Mr Jitendra Bhargava, told Business Line.

"We do have plans to operate international flights out of the city and will probably begin with a flight to Dubai on December 12 but details like flight frequency are being worked out just now and it is too premature to talk about it," Mr Bhargava said.

Pune's industry, not surprisingly, is excited about the prospects. "The city needs and deserves international connectivity considering that it is now a major business destination. Admittedly, there is not enough traffic for airlines to operate flights through the week, but we require flights heading to the East and to the West and it does not matter if these originate in other cities or have to stop over at other cities before heading overseas," says Mr Pradeep Bhargava, Managing Director, Newage India Ltd and past Chairperson, CII, Pune.

Residents of Pune, heading overseas, now have to travel to Mumbai city for their international flight, something Mr Bhargava points out is both inconvenient and time consuming. "Also, travel plans go for a toss if one gets caught in a traffic snarl either on the Mumbai-Pune express way or in Mumbai, enroute to the airport," he says.

The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (MCCIA), meanwhile, is jubilant that its years of campaigning for international airport status for Pune is finally giving results. "The city is a major center for IT and ITES, not to mention that it is a hub for the auto industry and for education. It deserves direct connectivity to destinations abroad," says the MCCIA's Director-General, Mr D.K. Abhyankar, who points out that six lakh visitors arrive here on business annually.

The MCCIA, incidentally, is also pushing for a full-fledged international airport in the industrial belt of Chakan where land has already been acquired. The project, however, is likely to take another 5-6 years since there are various unspecified hurdles along the way.

Pune citizens are, meanwhile, hopeful that the authorities will upgrade facilities and infrastructure at the airport and bring more comforts to domestic travellers.

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