Airport terminal expansion under detailed estimation stage: AAI

SURAT: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has stated that the scope of work for expansion of terminal building at Surat airport has been approved and it is under detailed estimation stage at the central headquarters.
Following a report in TOI highlighting the inordinate delay in the expansion of the existing terminal building at Surat airport on February 8, an aware citizen wrote to AAI regarding the issue and he got a reply, which stated that the scope of work for expansion of the terminal building has been approved by the competent authorities, and was under detailed estimation stage at the central headquarters.

RTI activist Rajesh Modi told TOI, "Surat airport is operating 22 scheduled flights and 10 non-scheduled flights with monthly passenger capacity of 63,000. The AAI has taken a long time for calculating detailed estimates of the terminal building."

Modi added, "I was surprised the way AAI replied to my query. If it is exact copy of the old building, then time required for estimation should not be more than two months. The scope of work was approved last year in February then why the inordinate delay in executing the work?"

From just 30,000 passengers per month in April 2017, the passenger traffic at Surat airport has seen a sharp increase at 63,000 passengers per month. The average monthly flight movements have increased from 647 in April 2017 to almost 1,000 per month in January 2018.

At present, the terminal building has peak hour passenger handling capacity of 250 passengers - 125 arrivals and 125 departures - as against the required capacity of 2,500 passengers per day.

As per a rough estimate, the present capacity to handle passengers at the terminal building is 2 lakh per annum. At present, there are around 8 lakh passengers travelling to and from Surat airport per annum in 21 flights operated by SpiceJet and Air India, private operator Ventura Airconnect and Non-Schedule Operator Permit (NSOP).