Tag - Airport

AAI Provides Ambulift Facility At 14 Airports Including Bagdogra Airport To Help Flyers With Reduced Mobility

On Wednesday Ministry of Civil Aviation announced that 14 AAI Airports are now equipped with Ambulifts to facilitate flyers with reduced mobility.

The initiative was taken up by AAI under the Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan) of the Government of India to facilitate passengers with reduced mobility, Divyang passenger on wheelchairs and passengers on stretchers.

The facility is presently operational at 14 airports namely Dehradun, Gorakhpur, Patna, Bagdogra, Darbhanga, Imphal, Vijayawada, Port Blair, Jodhpur, Belgaum, Silchar, Jharsuguda, Rajkot, Hubli and remaining six are likely to be operational at Dimapur, Jorhat, Leh, Jamnagar, Bhuj & Kanpur airports by the end of this month.

According to a statement by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the ambulifts can cater to six wheelchairs & two stretchers with an attendant at a time and is fitted with Heating Ventilation & Air-Conditioning system.

Procured at a cost of Rs. 63 lakhs per unit, AAI is providing Ambulift facility at a nominal token charge to the operating airlines at its airports.

“The Government of India has been working to take forward the vision of the Sugamya Bharat Abhiyaan in order to ensure fully accessible public infrastructure, including airports, railways stations and public transport systems. This new addition of Ambulift at various AAI airports will strengthen Transportation System Accessibility, which is an important vertical of the Accessible India Campaign,” read the statement.

Dibrugarh-Pasighat-Lilabari flight to be inaugurated tomorrow

In a bid to further boost air connectivity of the North Eastern Region with the rest of the country, Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has approved a Scheme – “Providing air connectivity and Aviation infrastructure in North Eastern Region (NER)” to promote air connectivity in the States of  NER.

“As a part of this scheme, two important development will take place on 12th April 2022 –First flight of Made in India HAL Dornier Do-228 from Dibrugarh in Assam to Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh,” read a statement by the Ministry of Civil Aviation

Alliance Air will be India’s first commercial airline to fly Indian made aircraft for civil operations. There will also be inauguration of First FTO (Flying Training Organization) for North Eastern Region at Lilabari, Assam.

Minister for Civil Aviation, Jyotiraditya M. Scindia with the presence of Chief Ministers of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh Himanta Biswa Sarma and Pema Khandu respectively will be present during the event.

“Connectivity in NER is very essential and Under “Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN)”, the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has identified NER as a priority area.  This has helped in enhancing inter and intra connectivity for the NER. In this regard, new airports are getting developed and old airports are getting upgraded. Considering the hilly terrain, helicopter operations under UDAN scheme have been given focus for connectivity,” the statement added.

Govt. Launches Scheme To Connect North Eastern States With Selected International Destinations

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has launched International Air Connectivity Scheme (IACS) scheme with the objective to enhance air connectivity from certain States of the country with selected international destinations to promote socio-economic growth. This scheme is supported by the State Governments.

The State Government of Assam, Manipur and Tripura have identified routes connecting Guwahati, Imphal and Agartala with selected international destinations viz. Bangkok, Dhaka, Kathmandu, Yangon, Hanoi, Mandalay, Kunming & Chittagong.

This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Civil Aviation Gen. V. K. Singh (Retd) in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on Monday.

Development and up-gradation of airports to international standards is a continuous process and is undertaken by concerned airport operators from time to time depending upon commercial viability, traffic demand, availability of land etc.

As on date, there are two international airports in the North East Region at Guwahati and Imphal which are operated by Guwahati International Airport Limited (GIAL) and Airports Authority of India (AAI) respectively.

GIAL and AAI both have undertaken construction of New Integrated Terminal Building (NITB) and other associated works at their respective airports to improve services including, increase in passenger handling capacity.

In addition, AAI has taken up the following development works to boost international connectivity to/from North Eastern Region:-

  1. i) The new terminal building at Agartala Airport has been designed as integrated terminal keeping in view the future requirement for international operation.
  2. ii) Construction of a New Integrated Terminal Building for 2.4 Million Passengers Per Annum (MPPA), at a cost of around Rs.500 crore has been undertaken at Imphal Airport to augment passenger handling capacity, which has been declared as an International airport.

Government accords ‘In-Principle’ approval for setting up 21 Greenfield Airports

The government of India has accorded ‘In-Principle’ approval for setting up of 21 Greenfield Airports across the country.

According to the statement by Ministry of Civil Aviation the places where the airports approved are namely Mopa in Goa, Navi Mumbai, Sindhudurg and Shirdi in Maharashtra, Bijapur,Hassan, Kalaburagi and Shimoga in Karnataka, Dabra (Gwalior) in Madhya Pradesh, Kushinagar and Jewar (Noida) in Uttar Pradesh, Dholera and Hirasar in Gujarat, Karaikal in Puducherry, Dagadarthi, Bhogapuram and Orvakal (Kurnool) in Andhra Pradesh, Durgapur in West Bengal, Pakyong in Sikkim, Kannur in Kerala and Hollongi (Itanagar) in Arunachal Pradesh.

Out of these, 8 Greenfield airports viz. Durgapur Airport in West Bengal, Shirdi Airport in Maharashtra, Kannur Airport in Kerala, Pakyong Airport in Sikkim, Kalaburagi Airport in Karnataka, Orvakal (Kurnool) Airport in Andhra Pradesh, Sindhudurg Airport in Maharashtra and Kushinagar Airport in Uttar Pradesh have been operationalized.