The summer flight schedule begins on March 26 at Chandigarh’s Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport, and many changes are expected. On a daily basis, the airport will see 51 flights (arrivals and departures), including some new routes.
From April 15 to October 28, a new Chandigarh-Bengaluru flight will be available. A Go First flight from Ahmedabad to Chandigarh and Srinagar will also begin operations. The flight will land in Chandigarh at 7:35 am and will depart from the Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport at 8:05 am.
Rakesh Ranjan Sahay, CEO of Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport, told Tribune India, “51 flights will be operational from the airport now. One new flight has been added to the schedule.” As per the latest flight schedule, Chandigarh will see 16 flights operating on Sunday, as reported by Times of India. The bi-weekly international flight to Sharjah will operate as usual. The flight to Dubai will remain on the roster six days a week.
In terms of domestic traffic, Delhi will have the maximum number of flights from Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport (11), followed by Mumbai (nine) (nine). Three flights to Leh, Goa, Srinagar, and Jaipur have been announced. Two flights will depart for Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, respectively. From Chandigarh, there will be one flight each to Patna, Pune, Chennai, Kullu, Kolkata, Dharamshala, and Indore.
The Centre has approved the domestic summer schedule for 2023, with 4.4 percent more flights than in winter last year. According to a statement by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), “22,907 departures per week have been finalised to and from 110 airports.” The figure is a slight increase from 21,941 departures per week from 106 airports in the winter 2022 schedule.
The DGCA added that Jamshedpur, Pakyong, Jeypore, Cooch Behar, Hollongi and Mopa (Goa) are the new airports proposed by the scheduled airlines. “Operations from Ziro and Hindon airports are not proposed in the Summer Schedule 2023,” the civil aviation body added.
The number of departures is marginally higher than the summer schedule of 2021 (22,980). In terms of airlines, IndiGo has the highest number of approved flights in the schedule (11,645). The next largest airline is SpiceJet with 2,240 scheduled flights. Air India has an approved strength of 2,178 flights.