NEW DELHI: Persistent shortage of parking bays has thrown flight operations at Hindon Airport into disarray, prompting the authorities to seek urgent intervention from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Officials said that the Ministry of Civil Aviation has requested the MoD for additional air slots and parking space to ease growing pressure on Hindon Airport’s civil terminal. Commercial airlines using the airport have been advised to coordinate flight timings better.
The authorities may also take a call to reduce flight operations at select routes temporarily. Officials said that Ghaziabad MP Atul Garg, who also chairs the Airport Coordination Committee, has written to the Ministry of Civil Aviation suggesting a reduction in the number of scheduled flights to allow remaining services to operate smoothly.
The airport currently connects 25 cities and handles 50 flights in a day, with a slot of three flights each hour.
Umesh Yadav, Director of Operations at Hindon, confirmed the development and expressed the urgency for further allocation of resources.
“We are in talks with the Centre to allocate more bays and slots. It will help in the rationalisation and management of flights as we are continuously expanding to more cities. There have already been meetings between concerned authorities to resolve the constraints,” he told this newspaper.
Last week, flight operations at Hindon were temporarily disrupted on several routes after both designated parking bays were occupied, one by an aircraft grounded due to technical issues, and the other by a flight unable to depart due to adverse weather. The situation led to the diversion and suspension of several incoming flights.