Air traffic on the Pune-Dubai route has been somewhat stabilised since its beginning. However, air traffic on the Pune-Dubai route will still be heavily based on airspace limitations over the destination in the continuing West Asia conflict and would still be prone to variation as long as air traffic over West Asia is insecure.
In the last month, the crisis has led to regular cancellations, last-minute flight reshuffles and wild fluctuations in airfare, making travel planning virtually impossible. Spice Jet currently flies around four times a week on the Pune-Dubai sector, in the late evening and early morning, whenever possible. IndiGo has suspended its Pune-Dubai flights.
Officials of the Airport Authority of India at Pune Airport said there are no operational constraints from the Pune side, but flight resumption largely depends on whether Dubai airspace opens up or not. The airport director confirmed seeing improvement over the past few days and also said that as soon as airspace becomes available, airlines would immediately try to resume flights, indicating that passengers could see regularity if this trend continues.
This has been a serious blow to the regular travellers. According to business travellers from Pune, they have had to cancel many of their business trips at the last minute, and have also had to contend with sudden fare hikes, which made pre-booking a difficult option. While travellers are also seeing signs of improvement, they are now waiting for a few more days of stable operations to start pre-booking flights.