Dashing the hopes of air passengers from Malabar, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha has said that the Calicut International Airport is unsuitable for operation of wide-bodied aircraft, and hence, the airport will not be an embarkation point for Haj pilgrims from the State.
“I have had the matter examined and would like to inform you that a joint inspection carried out by the Director General of Civil Aviation and Airports Authority of India on January 9 and 10, 2017 to assess the possibility of wide-bodied (9 Code E) aircraft operations at Calicut Airport found that the runway is not suitable for wide-bodied aircraft operations,” the Minister said in a letter to Congress MP Mullappally Ramachandran.
Quoting the observations made by the inspection team, Mr. Sinha said that the existing runway length of 2,850 metres at the Calicut airport was inadequate for most of the Code E aircraft operations.
The existing runway end safety area (RESA) available on both ends of the runway was of 90x90 m, against the civil aviation requirements (CAR) recommendation of DGCA of 240x90 meters RESA, he said.
He added that the runway strip width was 75 m on either side or runway centreline against the required runway strip of 150 m as per CAR recommendation of DGCA. Besides, the required separation between the apron taxi lane and runway centreline was not available for Code E aircraft, the Minister said.
The Airports Authority of India had suspended operations of Boeing B-747 and B-777, Airbus A-330, and other wide-bodied aircraft including Saudia (Saudi Arabian Airlines) and Emirates at the airport since May 1, 2015.
He said the Haj committee of India had decided to maintain status quo in respect of the number of embarkation points for Haj 2017.
The decision was in view of the fact that the Calicut airport was not suitable to operate wide-bodied aircraft, the Minister said.
