Land pool for airport expansion shrinks to 147 acres

Aurangabad, April 27:

A meeting of industrialists and officers concerned to discuss expansion of Chikalthana Airport and starting new flights from Aurangabad base was held in Mumbai on Tuesday.

The prime discussion was on proposed 182 acres of land for the expansion of the airport. However, after discussion, the meeting finalised that the extension will now be done on 147 acres of land only. The shrink in land pool has been made to protect demolition of houses existing close to the airport boundary.

The meeting was held under the presidentship of the union Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad and was attended by state’s principal secretary (civil aviation and tourism) Valsa Nair Singh, managing director of Maharashtra Airport Development Authority Deepak Kapoor, executive director J T Radhakrishnan, director (Chikalthana Airport) D G Salve, Civil Aviation Committee president and industrialist Sunit Kothari, Mansingh Pawar, Ranjeet Singh Kakkad, Rishi Bagla, Vivek Deshpande, managing director of Akasa Airlines Vinay Dubey, CEO of Fly Big Airlines Sanjay Mandviya and others. The district collector Sunil Chavan also joined the meeting through video conferencing.

Proposal of airbus

While speaking to the newspaper, Karad said,” The airport expansion will now be done in 147 acres rather than proposed 182 acres. By doing thing, we could extend the air runway (strip) by 12,000 feet and also save the houses existing nearby from getting demolished. We have also submitted a proposal of starting air bus to the airline companies in the meeting.

Air bus service by two companies?

The members present in the meeting convinced the representatives of the above two airline companies to start their flights from Aurangabad. They underlined that the price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) is low compare to others. Besides, there is no issue of parking the flights and slot of time required to operate the plot (morning or evening) at Aurangabad airport. They were told to make Aurangabad their base for operating flights. The officials of airline companies assured of looking into the matter positively. They also hinted that if the state offers them subsidy then it may help them in reaching upon the decision, soon.

Status of Runway (Strip)

- The present length of air strip is of 9,300 feet. The small and medium size planes are operated from the runway.

- If the strip is extended to 12,000 feet then it will be convenient for the operation of jumbo or big planes.