The Tamil Nadu government has made good progress in land acquisition for expanding infrastructure at airports, a major factor that had stalled the expansion plans of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for long at such places as Coimbatore and Tiruchi. After several years, the land acquired for the Coimbatore airport expansion was handed over to the AAI. Enter-upon permission has been granted for a major chunk of the land that the AAI had sought in Tiruchi. The Madurai airport became operational 24×7 recently. Farther down south, a new terminal is coming up at the Thoothukudi airport. All of this augurs well for boosting air travel.
In recent years, the AAI too has been keen on developing the airports in the State realising the potential for growth. More facilities will help in attracting more airlines and increasing the passenger traffic, says S.G. Panicker, Regional Executive Director, Southern Region, AAI. “Apart from concentrating on Chennai, the AAI is prioritising cities, including Tiruchi, Madurai, and Coimbatore, to give a boost to aviation in the State so that there is enhanced connectivity to more destinations. Even in Salem, we have eight movements a day and we want to add more facilities…,” he says.
Coimbatore airport
Work on the long-pending expansion of the Coimbatore International Airport is expected to commence soon, after the AAI issued a letter of approval on October 18, accepting the transfer of the land acquired by the State government. Sources at the Coimbatore airport administration says the details of the land transfer have been forwarded to the AAI headquarters.
In August this year, the Coimbatore Collector gave the AAI enter-upon permission for 472.325 acres of the acquired land, out of which 451.745 acres is patta land and 20.58 acres is poramboke land. Working permission for 148.396 acres of defence land has also been accorded, according to a communication issued in December 2023. The total area identified for the expansion is 632.95 acres, spread across Irugur, Neelambur, Kalapatty, Singanallur, and Uppilipalayam villages.
The key factor for the expansion of the airport, which is spread over 420 acres, is the need for a bigger runway in order to accommodate wide-body aircraft. The existing runway, 05 and 23, is 2,990 metres long and 45 metres wide. Besides an expanded length, the runway needs larger turn pads for handling bigger aircraft. A new terminal building, a new approach road, and other amenities are part of the project.
Coimbatore stands next to Chennai, with 28 daily domestic flights, connecting Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, and Goa. Four airlines operate international flights to Sharjah, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi. The total passenger movement stands at 9,400-10,000 a day. “With land acquisition completed, the AAI should expedite all other formalities and execute the master plan at the earliest for the construction of a state-of-the-art airport, with the involvement of local stakeholders at every stage. The Ministry of Civil Aviation should include the Coimbatore airport as a point of call in the ASEAN Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) to increase international operations,” says Vanitha Mohan, vice-chairperson of Kongu Global Forum (KGF), an association of industrial, business and trade leaders from the western districts.
Tiruchi airport
Making the city a point of call under the BASA is a major demand in Tiruchi, too, where the district authorities have made good progress in land acquisition for the expansion of the airport runway. After the first phase of the runway extension from 6,000 to about 8,000 feet, the AAI had drawn up plans in 2010-11 to expand the runway further to 12,000 feet to facilitate the operation of bigger and wide-body aircraft. The AAI then requested the government for about 500 acres of land, including about 167 acres of defence land.
Acquisition of patta land for the project is nearing completion. “As 95% of patta land acquisition has been completed, enter-upon permission has been issued to the AAI for 102 hectares (about 252 acres) of patta land and 2.43 hectares of poromboke land. The acquisition of the remaining patta land and alienation of about 6.78 hectares of poromboke land will be completed in a month. The Defence Ministry also gave working permission for 67.60 hectares in July 2022. Hence, the AAI can start the work,” Tiruchi Collector M. Pradeep Kumar told The Hindu.
Airport Director G. Gopalakrishnan says a lot of follow-up work, including the construction of a boundary wall, will have to be taken up once the land is fully handed over. “The progress made in land acquisition is welcome. However, it could still take a couple of years for the expansion projects to materialise. It is important that both the AAI and the State government expedite the processes for the projects to take off,” says T.H. Radhakrishnan, a former deputy general manager of Air India, who served as the station manager in Tiruchi between 2003 and 2012.
A swanky new terminal with a capacity to handle about 4.5 million passengers a year became operational at the Tiruchi International Airport in June. A new Air Traffic Control Tower, being built at a cost of about ₹60 crore, is expected to become fully operational in 2025. The investment in this airport has been justified. The airport, which has more international flights than domestic flights, handled almost seven lakh international passengers between April and September this year, a 10% growth over the corresponding period last year. During the same period, it handled about 2.81 lakh domestic passengers, a 41.7% growth over the corresponding period last year, according to the data available on the AAI website. Tiruchi is one of the busiest international airports in India, connecting 10 foreign destinations.
Madurai airport
Though the Madurai airport got a new terminal building in 2010 and international flights are being operated to Singapore, Dubai, and Colombo, the airport is yet to get international status. It handled 14 lakh passengers during 2023-24. The 24×7 operation became a reality on October 1, 2024. AAI Chairman M. Suresh says the number of flights taking off from the Madurai airport would increase manifold in the next six months. Virudhunagar MP B. Manickam Tagore says it may take more time for the airport to get international status, but it will have more domestic flights. “We expect flights to connect Madurai with Varanasi and Pune very soon,” he adds. Madurai already has air connectivity to Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and New Delhi.
To handle the increasing number of passengers, the airport has reconfigured the terminal building. “These measures will help in swift clearance of passengers and reducing their waiting time in queue,” says Airport Director P. Muthu Kumar. The terminal building and the runway are good enough to cope with the present situation, officials say. However, soon the airport’s passenger-handling capacity will get saturated as more services come to Madurai. “Hence, we will soon start the work on further expansion of the airport,” Mr. Suresh adds.
According to Mr. Muthu Kumar, the Madurai airport, located on 502.25 acres, is acquiring 633.17 additional acres. “543.64 acres have already been handed over for further expansion.”
Madurai Collector M.S. Sangeetha has given administrative sanction for land acquisition to lay a road alternative to the one that is holding up the construction of a compound wall around the acquired land. The airport has built a compound wall to a length of 12.36 km in the newly acquired land.
New terminal at Thoothukudi
Development work taken up at an estimate of ₹312 crore at the Thoothukudi airport has reached the final stage. The construction of a new terminal is scheduled for completion in December this year. “The work on the Air Traffic Control Tower will go on till March,” says Mr. Suresh.
The departure terminal would have four entrances, with 21 passenger check-in counters. The airport would have three aero-bridges and two conveyor belts at the arrival hall. Efforts are on to commission the new terminal at the earliest.
The new terminal is spread over 17,536 square metres, similar to that of the Madurai airport. “At Thoothukudi, the terminal has been designed to handle only domestic passengers. With good potential for international flights from Thoothukudi, we have asked for modifications to the terminal building work to handle international passengers in future,” Mr. Suresh says.
It would cater to the large number of people from southern districts headed to Singapore and Arabian countries, he adds. The airport will also get a wider approach road.
(With inputs from S. Sundar in Madurai and Wilson Thomas in Coimbatore.)
Published – November 10, 2024 12:54 am IST