Airport Authority of India Chairman Shri V.P.Agrawal talked with media persons at Ahmedabad airport today. Following

are the major points that came out of this interaction.

About new Control tower at Ahmedabad airport

-New control tower has been sanctioned, but there was some issue with its location. Now location has been finalized and the work will begin soon.

About new Radar at Ahmedabad airport

-Radar’s technical tender is over, then there will be financial five-six months

About new proposed Taxi way

-For creating a new taxi way, we would need extra 65 acre land. We have requested the state government for that. They

have surveyed how many houses will need to be shifted etc. While the government is ready to allot the govt owned land, they believe that the rest of the land should be bought by the Airport authority. We will take this to our board. Of total 65 acre land needed, two acre land is in one direction and 63 acre land falls near Kotarpur works. Of 65 acres, about 70% land is private owned, and 30% is government owned. We will need about Rs. 100 crore to acquire private land and Rs. 50 crore for construction of taxi way. Thus the total cost will come to nearly Rs. 150 crore.

-Taxi way is needed because presently airplane goes on runway in one direction and then returns, therefore runway remains busy for double the time, and due to that, maximum 12 aircraft can be operated in an hour. After new taxi way the capacity will double, and therefore operation of 24 aircraft in one hour would be possible.

-There were one or two instances where we told that due to busy runway flights were circuited and they had to fly in air for

some time, so if such incidents happen these days, we have to keep future in mind from now only.

About Airbus 380

-Some airlines like Emirates, and Singapore airlines have procured Airbus 380. Perhaps they might operate Airbus 380 alternate or regularly at Ahmedabad airport in future. Keeping this in mind we have raised the height of carpeting shoulder.
New airport terminal works

Connecting the two terminals

-At Ahmedabad airport, the traffic growth is very good and therefore in morning time there’s some congestion due to various domestic flights. To solve this problem, the current perpendicular international terminal and domestic terminal both will be connected with a new building. This project will be taken soon.

City side development

City side development project will be taken up keeping in mind that it is asociated with aviation purpose. We have 27 acre land in Ahmedabad for this purpose. The project will be caried out in public-private-partnership model. Land will be given on lease for 30+30 years.

Hangers at Ahmedabad airport

-We are proposing construction of two hangers at Ahmedabad airport.

On issues with Gujarat govt.

They(the Gujarat govt people) say every time that we need to pay for land. Now compare to this Tamilnadu govt gives us land for airport development free of cost which makes our work easy. Especially in the case of small airports, the state government’s support makes our work smoother. Take an example of Porbandar airport which makes loss already, but we want to develop it and need land therefore. The state govt. says we need to pay for that. They should understand that for small airports it is very difficult to make profit, so if state government comes forward, things become easier. Porbandar we are anyway going to start.

About Bus service

We are not inclined to encourage auto rickshaws at airport due to security reasons, but the state government or local authority should start AC bus for airport around flight timings. We are ready to provide parking area for such buses. Delhi has such facility.