Surat Airport gearing up for holistic development with world-class facilities

 

Airports Authority of India (AAI) is extensively working towards the holistic development of the Surat Airport with a project cost of Rs 353 crore. The building will have five aerobridges.

New Delhi: Surat, the financial capital of Gujarat and hub for diamond and textile business in India attracts air travellers in large numbers from across the world and India. In fact, Surat Airport has witnessed one of the highest passenger traffic growth in the recent past. Surat Airport’s air traffic has grown around 600% from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Considering the significant rise in passenger traffic in the last few years, Airports Authority of India (AAI) is extensively working towards the holistic development of the Surat Airport with a project cost of Rs 353 crore. This development project includes the extension of the existing terminal building from 8,474 sqm to 25,520 sqm.

Salient features of the developed terminal building:

Equipped with all modern passenger amenities, the developed terminal building will have 20 check-in counters.

The building will have five aerobridges, In-Line baggage handling system, five conveyor belts for arriving passengers

There will be car parking for 475 cars.

In addition to the extension of the current terminal building, the expansion of Apron from five parking bays to 23 Parking bays and construction of parallel taxi track (2,905 m X 30 m) work has also commenced. After completion of the project next year in December, the new state-of-the-art extended terminal building will be capable of handling 1,200 domestic and 600 international passengers’ during peak hours taking the annual passenger capacity to 2.6 million.

The modernized airport terminal will be 4-Star GRIHA rated energy-efficient building and the interiors will reflect the art and culture of Gujarat. The Foundation Stone for the extension of Terminal Building of Surat Airport was laid by Prime Minister Modi on 30th January 2019. The new world-class terminal building of the airport will give impetus to the growth of the region.

Worth mentioning that last year, the Cabinet gave its approval for the development of a new Greenfield Airport at Hirasar, Rajkot in Gujarat at an estimated cost of Rs 1,405 crore. The existing airport at Rajkot is severely land constrained having only 236 acres (approx.) of land and situated in the heart of the city. The government has already identified the  equired land for the new airport and has also requested Airports Authority of India to develop, operate and maintain the new airport.