Twitter
Advertisement

Shirdi airport flying high, pax figures go up

The movements and passenger handling capacity of Shirdi Airport will increase after it gets night landing facility and starts international operations.

Latest News
article-main
Shirdi airport site
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

It has been 15 months since inauguration of Shirdi Airport in 2017. It has been a success story with around 3,000 flight movements carrying around 1.83 lakh passengers. Of the total 3,000 flight movements, 10 per cent of the traffic is that of charter planes.

Of the total 1.83 lakh passengers, nearly 1,500 passengers travelled in 298 charter aircraft. The movements and passenger handling capacity of Shirdi Airport will increase after it gets night landing facility and starts international operations.

At present, the infrastructure is insufficient for night landing. With no facility for immigration required for international flight passengers, only domestic flights are allowed to operate.

Suresh Kakani, Managing Director, Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC), said, "We have completed 3,000 aircraft movements ever since operations started in October 2017, and they will increase further with the expansion of runway and starting night landing facility in the next four months."

According to data provided by MADC, there were total 2,794 flight movements since October 2017, followed by 298 chartered aircraft movements. The charter aircrafts carried 1,334 passengers while 1,82,123 were carried by scheduled aircraft.

Other than this, MADC is also starting AC taxi services between Shirdi Airport and Shirdi temple citing that currently the taxi services are not much regulated. "We are not going to be the operator of AC taxi services but a mere facilitator. The aim is to give a quality experience to fliers," said a MADC official. Shirdi airport was constructed at Rs 350 crore of which around Rs 50 crore was contributed by the Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust.

Further, when it comes to operating of international flights, MADC officials said that they might consider starting international operations through movement of international charter aircraft. A MADC official said, "It will not be a direct flight to Shirdi from its destination in abroad. The flight can come via Mumbai or Delhi airport after completing the immigration process there."

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement