Trichy :

The profit-making Trichy airport should be provided all it needs, to make it truly international, G K Chaukiyal, member (operations) of Airports Authority of India, said on Wednesday. Chaukiyal said the AAI was controlling around 125 airports in the country and only 10 or 12 are making profits. However, Chaukiyal denied the Trichy airport was one of the 11 airports listed for privatisation.

Chaukiyal was on a customary visit to the Trichy airport that was recently accorded the international status to inaugurate the new barracks for the CISF personnel that has been constructed at a cost of Rs 73 lakh and the first-of-its-kind sniffer dog kennel at a cost of Rs 39 lakh. In May, last year, another Member (Air Navigation Services) AAI, V Somasundaram inaugurated the automation system of Air Traffic Services (ATS).

Airport director S Dharmaraj said the airport was making a profit to the tune of Rs 3 to 4 crore annually and it was increasing at a rate of five to 10 per cent. However, regional executive director, southern region D Devaraj, said that “This year the profit was touch-and-go.” Devaraj said the passenger traffic was increasing at a rate of 13% and the AAI had singled out five airports – Trichy, Coimbatore, Mangalore, Benaras, and Lucknow – for infrastructure development.

Chaukiyal said it was remarkable that Trichy airport was making profit and hence it should not be neglected and every possible help must be extended to make it grow. The infrastructure development includes the automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADSB) considered to be the next generation surveillance technology for tracking aircraft.

But Trichy airport has been plagued by many navigation ills on the infrastructure front and the single largest ill is the shorter runway that at present measures up to 8,136 feet and this does not enable larger aircraft to land. It serves as a great impediment to large-scale exports from this region even though there is admittedly unprecedented potential for products like banana and other textile items from the region. All efforts to expand it to at least 12,000 feet has met with a lot of hurdles including land acquisition for the project.

When asked about the inordinate delaying in the expansion process of the airport, Devaraj told TOI, “Land is always the problem. Let the state government give us the land, we will start the expansion work at once.”

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / Home> City> Madurai / TNN / March 28th, 2013