PUNE: At least three flights were diverted and over a dozen delayed due to a glitch in a circuit of lights on the edge of the runway of the Pune airport on Monday evening.
Sources at the airport said while operations slowly resumed and five flights landed after 7:30pm, the work on the runway lights was being carried out by the Indian Air Force (IAF). The runway and the air traffic control of the airport is managed by the IAF.
“After the runway recarpeting, the IAF is currently working on the lights of the runway. One of the circuits of the runway-edge lights developed a snag, which led to the diversions and delays,” a source at the airport told TOI.
Between 6pm and 9pm, 12 arrivals and 10 departures were delayed by over an hour because of the snag. An Air India flight coming to Pune from Delhi was diverted to Hyderabad, while a SpiceJet flight from Kolkata was diverted to Mumbai. An Indigo flight from Pune to Bengaluru was diverted to Mumbai. Flights from cities such as Delhi, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Mumbai were delayed. Similarly, flights taking off for destinations such as Nagpur, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata were delayed.
Marhatta Chamber of Commerce Industries and Agriculture president Sudhir Mehta, who was flying in an Air India flight, told TOI, “We are at the Hyderabad airport and airline officials said that the flight will take off for Pune in around half-an-hour. The pilot announced the diversion of the flight on the ground that there was a problem with the runway lights at the Pune airport. These incidents show how badly the city needs a new airport.”
Tania Roy, whose parents were supposed to fly to Kolkata at 7pm, told TOI, “The flight was rescheduled many times and it was finally diverted. My parents, who are senior citizens, had to wait at the airport for a long duration.”
