AHMEDABAD: When air traffic peaks in summer due to holiday rush, maintenance work at the SVP international airport may disrupt the travel plans of Amdavadis from April to June.
Business travel will be hit the most because airport authorities plan to partially close the runway for carpeting between 10.30am and 5pm everyday from April 1. Airport authorities say schedules of many Mumbai- and Delhi-bound flights will be changed. Flight operations will be fully suspended at Ahmedabad airport between May 15 and June 15 from 10.30 am to 5pm. Last year, the airport witnessed an average of 106 flights daily from April to December.
Business travel will be hit the most because airport authorities plan to partially close the runway for carpeting between 10.30am and 5pm everyday from April 1. Airport authorities say schedules of many Mumbai- and Delhi-bound flights will be changed. Flight operations will be fully suspended at Ahmedabad airport between May 15 and June 15 from 10.30 am to 5pm. Last year, the airport witnessed an average of 106 flights daily from April to December.
Authorities told TOI that during this period a major part of the
3,599-metre runway will be carpeted. "The runway will be shut down for
six hours daily. Initially, around 10 flights will be rescheduled. We
have held meetings with airline operators and have asked them to
announce the details of rescheduled flights so that those getting
affected can plan accordingly," said Ahmedabad airport director Anuj
Aggarwal. But the bigger jolt to the travellers is that many airlines
have not yet declared new flight schedules during the period and are
still taking bookings.
"Airlines are making no effort to help fliers. Ahmedabad airport gets a stepmotherly treatment from airline operators who pull out flights from here to adjust traffic at bigger hubs like Delhi and Mumbai during summer. So the next three months will see chaos at the airport and travellers will have to bear the brunt," said an airline official. "I fly to Mumbai and Delhi in the morning almost four times a month and return the same afternoon. But the Air India flight from Delhi, which lands at Ahmedabad in the afternoon, is now suspended. So I was relying on other operators, but if other flights are also to be rescheduled, my work will suffer," said a senior telecom official.
"Airlines are making no effort to help fliers. Ahmedabad airport gets a stepmotherly treatment from airline operators who pull out flights from here to adjust traffic at bigger hubs like Delhi and Mumbai during summer. So the next three months will see chaos at the airport and travellers will have to bear the brunt," said an airline official. "I fly to Mumbai and Delhi in the morning almost four times a month and return the same afternoon. But the Air India flight from Delhi, which lands at Ahmedabad in the afternoon, is now suspended. So I was relying on other operators, but if other flights are also to be rescheduled, my work will suffer," said a senior telecom official.
