With the second wave of Covid-19 infection on a decline, the footfall of passengers at the Pune Airport has seen a considerable rise over the last week. This has led to airlines adding flights to the daily schedule. As a result, the number of flight movements from the airport has gone up from 26 per day mid-may month to about 46 per day mid-June.
Airport officials said that they expect that the passenger activity will only improve in the coming weeks.
“As the severity of the infection spread will go down, more people will buy the tickets to travel and the number of flights will go up. We are seeing an increasing trend of footfall and flight operations since the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has started receding and businesses are opening up,” said Kuldeep Singh, director, Pune airport.
There has been a considerable increase in the number of flights departing from and arriving at the Pune Airport.
On May 17, there were 13 arrivals at the Pune Airport and 14 departures. On that day, 650 passengers arrived from various cities to Pune while 746 passengers departed from the airport to their destinations.
Since, the beginning of the month of June, the footfall at the airport has increased considerably. On June 14, for instance, 2307 passengers arrived at the airport and 1826 boarded their flights out of Pune.
Compared to the pre-pandemic traffic, these numbers are much less. Although Pune Airport is a civil enclave at an Air Force Station, about 75 arrivals and about the same number of departures every day.
The number of flights operating from the airport is expected to go up when the testing requirements are relaxed by the various state government.
For flyers coming to Maharashtra, Singh said, it is still mandatory to carry an RT-PCR test report.
“The norm is still valid and every passenger coming in from outside the state has to carry a negative RT-PCR report. The airlines have been asked to not allow passengers who have a positive test report or do not have an RT-PCR negative report,” said Singh.