Airport expansion plans fail to take off

Tribune News Service

Mohali, December 27

The Chandigarh International Airport, which has courted controversy since the new terminal was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi in 2015, continued to make headlines in 2017.

While the much-awaited Chandigarh-Bangkok international flight finally took-off, the airport remained mired in problems related to runway repair, gold seizures, lack of an instrument landing system and amenities for passengers.

Runway repair foils expansion plans

The expansion plans went into a tailspin as curtailment of watch hours at the airport disrupted operations due to runway upgradation. Over 10-11 flights were cancelled in the schedule due to change in watch hours, reducing the number of flights operating at the airport to 26. The runway repair work includes re-carpeting and increasing the runway length from 9,000 to 11,400 feet to accommodate wide bodied aircrafts that would connect Chandigarh to long distance flights to destinations like Canada, UK and Europe.

Passengers were hassled as the airport remained partially operational (5 am to 4 pm) six days of the week and no flight operated for civil operations on Sunday. The consequence has been a 15-20 per cent drop in footfall and the situation is likely to continue next year.

Airport Authority has already announced closure of airport for a 15-day period in February 2018. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has sought a reply from Northern Railways on whether it could press into service more trains in view of closure of airport.

The passengers may have to make alternate travel plans as runway repair work is expected to be complete by the end of 2018. The main challenge would be to make the airport operational for 24 hours like in Tier 1 cities.

Bangkok flight 

The Chandigarh-Bangkok direct flight, which was supposed to start in April 2017 but was deferred due to delay in procuring an aircraft, finally took off in December, becoming the third international destination to be connected to Chandigarh after Sharjah and Dubai.

The five-hour flight received a good response prompting the carrier, Air India, to increase frequency to four days a week. With demand to the popular tourist destination rising, it is expected that the flight would take off daily from the airport once the runway repair is complete. In 2018, there are plans for Chandigarh to be connected to Singapore and Malaysia.

Gold seizures

Customs officials seized over 12 kilograms of gold valued in total at Rs 3 crore from ‘conduits’ trying to smuggle in gold at the airport in   2017. As a consequence of better surveillance, customs sleuths thwarted over a dozen attempts of gold smuggling, with four incidents reported this month.

It is a point of concern that only after one year of commencement of international operations, so many cases have been reported, with couriers using innovative methods of concealing the gold inside vacuum cleaner, coffee mugs, body cavity, coat buttons and suitcases.

Most cases are of Dubai returned passengers due to price difference, purity of gold and to avoid high customs duty.

Fog, an annual problem

Poor visibility due to fog continues to ground, delay and divert several flights. Fog remains an annual winter concern because the airport is not equipped with modern instrument landing system (ILS). With the current CAT-I (B) ILS, flights cannot land if the visibilitydrops below 1000 metres.

This means that all the flights taking off before 11 am are affected. Air India had started a direct flight to Kullu recently, but had to temporarily suspend it due to poor visibility in winter.

Indian Air Force (IAF) is upgrading the instrument landing system (ILS) to install CAT-II, whereby flights would be able to land even if visibility drops to 350 metres, but it would only be complete by mid 2019.

Highs

• Direct Chandigarh-Bangkok flight benefiting passengers
• Better surveillance and security at customs
• Radio station at airport lounge informing passengers of flight status and playing music.

Lows

• Lack of amenities such as ATMs, duty-free shops, food and beverage outlets
• Low pace of runway repair
• Less number of flights forcing passengers to take connecting flights which are time consuming

Lack of amenities 

The airport did start a radio station for flight information and an in-house radio jockey, but still lacks amenities such as more ATMs, duty-free shops and food and beverage outlets. A total of 18 shops were supposed to open. Tender for opening duty-free outlets have been awarded and they are likely to open in February next year.