Pune: The tussle between airlines is ringing louder in Pune. There are new flights to Kolkata, New Delhi and Patna during the night slots.

Air Vistara has withdrawn flight between Pune and Kolkata citing less business during the night slot. However, Air Asia and IndiGo have started  direct flights to Kolkata. The four airlines have been given night slot from Pune airport. Air Asia, IndiGo, Jet Airways and Spice Jet will fly to Kolkata, Kolkata, Patna and New Delhi respectively. 

“We are going to start four flights for four destinations between March 25 and April 20 during night slots. Jet Airways will start a new flight to Patna from March 25. One new flight for Delhi will be started from March 25 by Spice Jet. Two new flights for Kolkata will be started from April 11 and 20, by Air Asia and IndiGo,” said Ajay Kumar, Director, Pune Airport.

Recently, Air Vistara withdrew its flight between Pune and Kolkata. There are thousands of people in Pune who would fly to Kolkata and the flight for Kolkata goes almost full.

Sanjiv Kapoor, Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer at Vistara, said, “Our flights were more than 90 per cent full in economy class but at night, business class customers do not travel and Pune does not have any daytime slots available. We are redeploying the aircraft to operate new routes including Chennai–Kolkata twice daily and have added a third daily frequency for Kolkata–Delhi. We operate 3 flights a day between Pune and Delhi,” he added.