Patna: The Indian Airport Authority (AAI) has issued a revised winter schedule for Jay Prakash Narayan International Airport from Saturday to 15 January.
A total of 44 flights will operate under the revised winter schedule of 48 available flights from the city airport at this time.
Spicejet will launch a new flight (SJ 3839/3840) on the Kolkata-Patna-Kolkata route from January 5.
Spicjet will operate a total of 11 flights from city airports, against 13 operated by Friday.
Indigo will operate the highest number of 19 flights, one less than 20 operated by Friday.
Goair Airlines will continue to operate nine flights.
Air India will keep five flights from city airports, while Vistara has dropped Bangalore flight from its schedule and will now operate a flight from Patna to New Delhi at night.
Flight operation will begin every day from 9 o’clock in the morning.
The last flight was scheduled to depart at 8:15 a.m.
No flights allowed to land at the airport normally before 9 or even 10 am in winter because the misty conditions are usually from mid-December.
Thus, most airlines tweaked their schedules by canceling their morning flights and adding flights in the afternoon under their respective winter schedules.
Changes in time are also made on night flights.
Tweaked time for flight operations usually continues until mid-February.
“Heavy misty conditions have not been witnessed, but airlines have tweaked their schedules to prevent major disruptions in operations in the coming weeks.
In addition, we have more space for passengers because of a sustainable extension of the terminal building,” said an airport official told TOI with anonymity requirements.
Most of the problem operations that have troubled at Patna Airport have been linked with a shorter runway, which worsens the situation when its visibility is bad because of the fog cover.
Regarding the total runway of 2,286m (7,500 feet), only 1.954m (6409 feet) available when taking off due to the limit of the airport location.
Thus, flights are left off or landing here only when the visibility is 1000 meters or higher.
However, daily passenger footsteps at Patna Airport remain in the range of 9,000-12,000 at this time.