Work on new international terminal of the city airport is running behind schedule. Passengers will have to wait another few months at least for better facilities.

The Government of India had approved the construction of a New International Terminal Building along with city side approach road, car parking and apron, GSE area on airside at Ahmedabad Airport in 2006. The project was expected to be completed in 18 months from the date of sanction but it has not been completed till today.

The Italian Thai Development (ITD)-Pratibha Consortium, Mumbai that took the first phase work for the terminal building measuring 225 x 88 metres, will be completing it at a cost of Rs 122 crore.

The second phase of the extension work of the terminal building of 45 x 88 metres has been allotted to M S Khurana Engineering Limited at Rs 80 crore. The Phase–II of the work is only a linear expansion of the terminal to accommodate passengers traffic of 800 arrivals and 800 departures. The capacity of phase I Terminal Building will be saturated in 2012-13, thus phase-II execution will be taken during 2011 and will be completed in 2012.

The international passengers traffic in this airport during 2004-05 was 3.73 lakhs passengers, presently it is around 5.5. to 6 lakh annually. The peak hour passengers are 450, whereas, passengers handling capacity of the existing building is 400 only. The existing building is thus saturated.

The International traffic at Ahmedabad Airport is forecasted to grow at a rate of 10% upto 2011-12 and 7% beyond 2011-12. The international passengers traffic is estimated to be 8.64 lakhs during 2013-14 and 11.14 lakhs during 2016-17. The peak hour passengers during 2012-13 will be 500 arrivals and 500 departures. The new Terminal Building has been planned to handle 1000 passengers (500 arrival and 500 departure). In phase II, the capacity will be enhanced to 1600 passengers.

After the completion of New International Terminal Building, the International operations shall be shifted to New Building. The existing building shall be used to cater to international cargo operations. The Airports Authority of India had appointed Global Technical Advisors (GTA) and Indian Financial Advisor (IFA) to give suggestions regarding the overall development of Ahmedabad International Airport.

The project has been planned according to International Airport Transport Association (IATA) norms for various facilities and intelligent building management systems.

On completion of the project the capacity of the International Terminal at the Ahmedabad Airport in two phases, the peak hour passengers traffic will enhance to 800 arrivals and 800 departures.

The new terminal, having both the arrival and the departure sections, will have many firsts for the Ahmedabad airport. Besides having separate taxi and VIP car parking, there will be half a kilometer-long Inter-linked Terminal (ILT), which will connect the domestic and the international airports, making the changeover of flights hassle-free. This will also help in making the airport as an international transit hub, in turn, reducing the burden at the Delhi and Mumbai airports.

Another first is the coming up of four aerobridges at the terminal to facilitate the movement of passengers from the aircraft to the terminal building. Once ready, the domestic and the international terminals will together have enough room to park 33 aircraft. It will also have sufficient room to welcome the world’s largest commercial aircraft, the Airbus-380.