Restructuring of airport runway begins
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, March 26
The restructuring of the 12,000 feet runway of Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport with an investment of over Rs100 crore kicked off at 8:00 pm today.
All flight operations during night came to end as the civil wok commenced with at the airport here today. The flights will remain suspended for at least one year. Civil work will be carried out in the night while normal flights will continue to operate in the day.
Airport director Venkateshwar Rao said the mechanism would remain in force from 8 pm to 5:30 am for a year. He said labourers and other required paraphernalia had reached the runway.
No flight had been cancelled. Timings of flights landing and taking off in the night had already been re-scheduled for operation in the day, he added.
Uzbekistan, Qatar and Air India used to operate their flights in the night. All these airlines have already re-scheduled their flights in the day. The overhauling will make the airport fit to accommodate all big aircraft being used in the world. The last re-carpeting of the runway was carried out in 2001-03.
The overhauling plan includes strengthening of flexible portion of the runway. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has also planned to have a provision of glass grid to check reflection cracks, besides rectification and repairing of the existing surface and joints along with overlaying of the existing runway shoulders and the resurfacing of blast pads.
The grading of the basic strip of the runway will also be done as per the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) requirements. To provide a better view to pilots, runway markings will be repainted.
The available pavement of taxiways will also be strengthened to match the strength of the main runway. In a similar fashion, electrical installations at the runway will also be a part of the spruce-up spree. “The translocation of precision approach path indicator (PAPI), a visual aid to pilots, will also be installed to provide safe and better air navigation facilities at the Amritsar airport,” said officials associated with the project.
