President Ram Nath Kovind on Sunday inaugurated the newly-built, ₹350 crore international airport at Shirdi in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district to coincide with the start of Sai Baba’s year-long death centenary celebrations.
President Kovind, who cut the ribbon in the morning, dedicated the airport to the people. The airport was built with the rationale of drastically shortening the travel time from Mumbai to 40 minutes instead of the five-hour road trip.
Following the inauguration, commercial flight operations will begin with a flight to Mumbai being operated by Alliance Air.
The airport had secured the aerodrome licence from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for commercial operations last month.
The objective was to facilitate the speedy and comfortable arrival of pilgrims from the country’s financial capital to the legendary Sai Baba shrine - one of the busiest and most popular pilgrimage centres in the country visited by more than 30,000 devotees daily.
Sunday marked the start of the year-long centenary celebrations (from October 1 to October 18, 2018) of Saint Sai Baba’s ‘Mahasamadhi’ in 1918, airport authorities expect heavy pilgrim traffic.
Last week, as part of the trial run, the first flight - an Alliance Air aircraft (ATR 72) – covered the 245 km-odd distance in 45 minutes.
The airport, with its 2,500 m-long runway, is equipped to handle single narrow-body aircraft like Airbus A320s and Boeing 737s. Part of the funding for the airport (₹ 50 crore) came from the Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust.
The 2,750 sq.m.-terminal building can accommodate nearly 300 passengers in total.