Amit Katoch
JAMMU, Mar 28: The process for Jammu Airport expansion is now on cards as the airport authorities are planning to expand the existing runway from 6700ft to 8000ft on 18 side to facilitate operations of aircrafts with load penalty.
”The current airstrip of 6700 ft will be expanded to 8000 ft at an estimated cost of Rs 75 crores. We have a very short runway strip and it is costing us huge as we are not able to fly down to South or far East of India. But once this runway is completed we will be able to facilitate operations of aircrafts to majority of the cities in India and that too without load penalty,”said D K Gautam, Jammu Airport Director while interacting with Excelsior News.
Airport Authority of India has expanded, modified and upgraded the terminal building of Jammu Airport with enhanced passenger amenities including doubling the area and per hour passenger handling capacity.
‘Terminal building up gradation work has already been completed and we have increased the area of building from 6750sqm to 14500sqm with increased numbers of escalators and lifts. And soon airport will be commissioning three aerobridges with additional taxiing track by next month. Also the number of check-in counters have been increased to 21 including one for differently abled persons coupled with feeder conveyers and belts for smooth baggage transition,” he said.
To a question Director Airport Jammu did acknowledge that passengers/visitors may feel a bit of discomfort with space constrains and absence of adequate parking facilities but assured to provide maximum comfort and convenience to the passengers at the airport once the long pending issues of land acquisition is solved with agencies involved in the project.
“For visitors the biggest problem was of waiting under open sky in harsh weather conditions so airport authorities have constructed a canopy right from the ticket counter to exit gate of the airport and this is the best facility which we have offered to our passengers and people accompanying them. But due to land constrains the airport authority is not able to provide the parking space to our customers/ passengers so to solve this issue we had already paid for the adjoining land to state government but there are some issues over possession of land as the state government still has not been able to rehabilitate the people settled on that land so it will take time to acquire that land but in spite of all these constrains we are trying our best to increase passengers convenience,” he maintained
Jammu Airport had 1.6 million passengers in FY17,and now the airport handles 48 aircraft movements.
On the issue of new air base at Jammu the director categorically stated that it will take a long time to give real picture to the entire project but for immediate redressal of associated problems he mentioned about the development of new Civil Air Terminal Complex at Belicharana.
”Considering the present Passenger growth, AAI has planned to construct a new Terminal complex of 30000 sqm. area in Belicharana on the other end of Runway. The new Terminal will have a peak hour capacity of 1500 passengers with two link Taxi Tracks plus six boarding bridges and 22 aircraft parking stands with a crgo complex and a multi level car parking area for more than 500 cars and the approx cost of the project will be 500 crores,” he said.
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