Ambitious Infrastructure Development Plans

Infrastructure Development Southern Region

AAI Focus

July 17, 2017

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AIBM

July - September 2017



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Four south Indian states – Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu – are the focus of ambitious plans set out by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to develop the infrastructure of their airports so as to keep up with the increasing demand of their services.

With India becoming the third largest aviation market in terms of domestic passenger traffic and set to become the third largest in both domestic and international traffic soon, add to that progressive initiatives undertaken by the Government of India (GoI), all of these factors have led AAI to increase and improve their current airport infrastructure. Specifically in the southern region, a number of infrastructure development plans have been underway for a while now to accommodate the increasing demand.

Vijayawada International Airport, Andhra Pradesh

Vijayawada is a commercial city in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh and the second largest after Visakhapatnam. Vijayawada’s prominence as a major trading and business centre has earned it the title of ‘The Business Capital of Andhra Pradesh’. As the commercial capital of Andhra Pradesh, Vijayawada is politically active, sociologically dominant, agriculturally rich and is an industrial transportation hub, thus a robust aviation service is a must in this area.

Infrastructure at Vijayawada Airport

Existing Infrastructure: Vijayawada Airport is a domestic airport with existing runway 08/26 of dimension 2,286m x 45m, with Instrument Landing System (ILS) at runway 26, suitable for operation of AB-320 type of aircraft in all weather conditions. The apron is suitable for parking four AB-320 type of aircraft and two ATR-72-500 type of aircraft.

The existing passenger terminal building with an area of 3,200 sqm is suitable to handle 250 peak hour passengers.

New Infrastructure:

In the new infrastructure the apron has the capacity of holding 10 aircraft bays for AB-320/AB-321 type of aircraft.

New Terminal Building:

Amongst the new infrastructure at this airport a new terminal building with car-parking facilities and associated infrastructure have been built. This terminal has a steel and glass structure and has state-of-the-art modern passenger friendly facilities such as baggage handling system, arrival baggage claim carousels, central air-conditioning, public address system, fire alarm system, Flight Information Display System (FIDS), CCTV for surveillance, check-in counters with Common Use Terminal Equipment (CUTE), etc.

Inspired around the rural-urban blend of Vijayawada’s culture, the interiors of the airport have been designed to portray a unique and smart gateway to the region. The terminal has three lane-wide kerb area with a blend of tensile and glass canopies, including green wall on city-side. To enhance the aesthetics of the terminal building, large landscape area with water bodies have been created on the city-side. All passenger amenities are available at the ground floor while the entire services have been located on first floor, for ease of operation.

Strengthening and Extension of Runway:

A proposed extension of the runway is in the works, where the runway will be increased from 2,286m to 3,360m, for operation of Code ‘E’ type of aircraft (B747-400), construction of isolation bay, pavement against blast erosion, Runway End Safety Area (RESA) along with runway lighting system, approach lighting system, perimeter lighting and boundary wall.

The New Terminal Building

At 12,642 sqm, the terminal has the peak hour handling capacity of 500 passengers (250 departure and 250 arrival). It has 18 check-in counters for easy flow of passengers and six boarding gates, to facilitate more aircraft. Along with that the new terminal has one baggage conveyor in the departure area, two baggage claim carousels, three X-BIS (one for registered baggage and two for hand baggage). The car/taxi parking area has a capacity of 300 cars with two lane-wide approach roads. Other facilities include, ceremonial lounge, conference hall, back-up offices for airlines, and dedicated approach road for VIPs.

The Runway Project

The runway project plans to extend the current 2,286m x 45m (with shoulders) runway by 1,074m x 45m (with shoulders) to achieve a total length of 3,360m x 45m. Other features include:

• Critical Aircraft: Code ‘E’ Aircraft (B747- 400/B777-300 ER)

• Isolation Bay & Link Taxi Track: 11m x 120m with taxiway 261.6m x 23m

• Runway End Safety Area (RESA): 90m x 240m on both ends

Belgaum Airport (in progress)

Belgaum Airport (in progress)

Belgaum Airport, Karnataka

Belgaum Airport is located 10 km east of Belgaum city, near state highway 20. It is the commercial hub and divisional headquarters of north Karnataka, ranking second to Bengaluru in the state in terms of overall export (mainly related to the automotive industry).

Regular flights started operations from 2003. At present, Spice Jet Airlines is operating two scheduled flights (Bombardier Q-400) daily in Belgaum. Belgaum is connected by flight to other metro cities like Bengaluru and Mumbai.

During 2008, expansion and modification was done to the existing terminal building with peak hour passenger capacity of 90 passengers (45 arrival and 45 departure).

AAI is looking to develop the airport for operation of A-321 type of aircraft. The extension of the runway was completed on March 2016 and the total length now stands at 2,300m. The size of the new apron is 151m x 138m and can thus accommodate three A-321 type of aircraft, this was also completed by March 2016. The airport is currently handling 2,081 aircraft and 127,777 passengers per annum. The new terminal building has been constructed for a peak hour capacity of 300 passengers (150 arrival and 150 departure) with area of Terminal Building 3,500 sqm. New Integrated Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower cum technical block cum fire station of total floor area 2,059 sqm has been developed for operating code 4C type of aircraft. An Isolated parking bay has also been constructed.

Hubli Airport (proposed)

Hubli Airport (proposed)

Hubli Airport, Karnataka

Hubli is known for its bustling commercial activities ranging from marketing agricultural produce, industrial manufacturing (Valves, TATA motors, High Court Bench), IT companies (Infosys, Deshpande Foundation), textiles business, etc.

The requirement of an Airport at Hubli was felt way back during 1974 when the region was under the Mumbai (then Bombay) presidency and thus the land acquisition was done initially during 1974. The development of the airport was later done by the Public Works Department (PWD) of Karnataka. Airport Authority of India took over the airport from Karnataka PWD during 1996 and flight operations was resumed in the 2001 by Air Deccan. After a few years, Kingfisher Airlines took over and operated flights to Bengaluru and mumbai.

However, the runway and terminal facilities were only sufficient for operation of a single ATR-72 aircraft. Due to the increased demand of the public for flying in the recent years, the Karnataka government requested AAI to expand the existing facilities at Hubli Airport. Keeping that in mind, AAI has been taking a number of steps to develop and expand Hubli Airport since 2013.

The first such initiative was the development of the operational boundary wall, which has been completed as per Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) standard of 13.3 km in place of chain link fencing and also the runway work, which has also been completed. The features of the runway work are shown in Table 2. The second initiative is currently under progress and includes new terminal building, control tower, technical block and fire station of category VI. The features of the new terminal building are displayed in Table 3.

Kozhikode International Airport

Kozhikode International Airport

Kozhikode International Airport, Kerala

Kozhikode International Airport is located at Malappuram district in Kerala, which is very close to the city of Kozhikode. This Airport is the gateway to the Malabar Region in the northern part of Kerala. Kozhikode Airport is mainly feeding Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur and Kasargod district. The gulf Malayalees are mainly dependant on this airport and make up the bulk of the passengers.

This airport presently handles 2.2 million passengers per year and has around 17,000 aircraft movement per annum. The airport was established in 1988. It received its international status on February 1992. Kozhikode Airport has also been declared as Kerala state Hajj pilgrimage embarkation point.

Due to the increasing traffic in India’s civil aviation sector, the present building stands congested, particularly during peak hours. By constructing one exclusive international arrival block of 17,000 sqm the total area will be augmented to 42,000 sqm, which shall meet the unit area norm of 27.5 sqm/pax/Phd. The existing terminal will be exclusively used for international departure once the new arrival block is commissioned.

Ongoing New International Arrival Block

The arrival block will cover an area of 17,000 sqm of building size (i.e. 110m x 80m) and will have the capacity of handling 1,500 passengers during peak hours. This block will have 44 check-in counters and 20 customs counters along with 48 immigration counters. With two passenger boarding bridges/aero bridges, one escalator, two elevators, and four conveyors (length – 300m), by the time this arrival block will be completed in June 2018, it will become extremely vital to the management of the high footfall in Kozhikode airport.

Chennai International Airport (proposed)

Chennai International Airport (proposed)

Chennai International Airport, Tamil Nadu

Chennai Airport is the third largest airport in the country being managed by AAI. The airport is geographically located near various religious destinations in the region and is one of the largest and fastest growing airports in the nation. Chennai Airport has witnessed passenger growth of 25.71 pc in domestic and 4.89 pc in international traffic sector during the last year (2016-17). Chennai Airport has handled 18.32 million passengers in the year 2016-17 against 15.4 million passengers handled during 2015-16, which is an average growth of 18.96. Thus despite being one of the largest airports in the nation, the Chennai Airport has to continue their infrastructure development if they have to keep up with the increasing traffic.

Existing Infrastructure

The AAI took up the modernisation of Chennai Airport under Phase-I in the year 2008. The master plan for this was developed to cater for a passenger capacity of 23 Million Passengers Per Annum (MPPA).

Modernisation Phase-I:

• Domestic Terminal (T-1): 10 MPPA

• International Terminal (T-4): 4 MPPA

Old Buildings:

• Domestic Terminal (T-2): 6 MPPA

• International Terminal (T-3): 3 MPPA

Present Proposal

Considering the rapid growth in the sector, the modernisation of Chennai Airport PhaseII at an estimated cost of INR 24.67 billion has been proposed. To increase the capacity within the limited available area, the existing old domestic terminal (T-2) and old international terminal (T-3) have been proposed to be demolished in phased manner and re-built with a two level terminal. The Phase-II modernisation is being planned to cater to an additional four MPPA domestic and 12 MPPA international passengers to enhance overall passenger handling capacity of the Chennai Airport to 30 MPPA or more. The designed peak hour capacity of the terminal buildings constructed in 2012 was 5,600 passengers (3,300 domestic and 2,300 international), below are the new proposed estimates for passenger capacity.

The peak hour capacity for the new integrated terminal proposed in Phase-II is:

• Domestic Terminal: 1,000 pax

• International Terminal: 4,800 pax

Vijayawada International Airport, Belgaum Airport, Hubli Airport, Kozhikode International Airport, and Chennai International Airport are prime examples of the strides AAI is making in infrastructure development to maintain the nation’s growth in the aviation sector.

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