With the new terminal of the Tiruchi International Airport set to be opened soon, the focus has shifted to the long-awaited runway expansion, which had been stalled due to the tardy progress in land acquisition.
The expansion of the runway, which would facilitate operation of wide-bodied aircraft, is seen as a vital requirement to propel future growth at the airport.
After the first phase of extension of the runway from 6,000 ft. to about 8,000 feet, carried out about 15 years ago, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) in 2010 had drawn up plans to expand it further to 12,000 feet in phases to facilitate operation of bigger and wide-bodied aircraft.
The AAI had then submitted a request to the government seeking about 510 acres of land, which included some Defence land too. In 2018, the State government had accorded administrative sanction to acquire about 345.62 acres, including wetlands. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh reportedly agreed to provide 166.97 acres of its land for the airport expansion project. But the process of acquisition of the private land is yet to be completed as the issue was mired in litigation for a long time following opposition from a section of residents and farmers.
In July this year, District Collector M. Pradeep Kumar, after a review, said that the legal hurdles had been cleared and the land acquisition process in the three villages of Kottapattu, Keezhakurichi and Keezha Kalkandarkottai would be speeded up. After inspecting the new terminal building a couple of days ago, Municipal Administration Minister K.N. Nehru said the process would be completed soon.
The local travel industry had long been pressing for expediting the runway expansion and designating Tiruchi as a point of call under the Bilateral Air Services Agreements (BASA) to pave the way for operation of flights for more international destinations from here. However, due to imbalance in the number of points of call in favour of foreign carriers, the Centre was reluctant to designate non-Metro airports as a new point of call to any foreign carrier for operating passenger services, industry sources said.
“The Tiruchi airport has made rapid strides and has seen a lot of growth over the past decade in terms of introduction of new services and passenger traffic. The new terminal will no doubt give a fillip to further growth, but it is essential that the runway of the airport is expanded at the earliest. Only then, wide-bodied aircraft could be operated to the airport,” said T.H. Radhakrishnan, a retired senior officer of Air India, who served as Station Manager of the airline in Tiruchi between 2003 and 2012.
However, some of the industry representatives feel that designating Tiruchi as a point of call under BASA was equally important as the runway expansion and the two issues were inter-linked from a commercial point of view for airlines.
“Operating a 340-seat wide-bodied aircraft to destinations already connected from here may not be commercially viable for airlines. The expansion of runway will bring in benefits only if Tiruchi Airport comes under BASA and foreign carriers are allowed to operate from here. This will help connect travellers from our region to the rest of the world,” said S.A. Mubashir, Vice-President, Tiruchi Tourism Federation.
