President Pranab Mukherjee will inaugurate the terminal on January 20 and the first flight will arrive three days later,on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s birth anniversary.
Announcing the inauguration date of the integrated terminal, Kolkata airport passenger facilitation committee chairman Saugata Roy said civil aviation minister Ajit Singh, Governor MK Narayanan and chief minister Mamata Banerjee will also be present at the function.
It will, however, take another couple of months before all carriers migrate to the new terminal and operate flights from there.
AAI and airlines officials are keen to minimize teething trouble during the transition period and avoid any major problems like the baggage handling fiasco that kept everyone on tenterhooks for over a month when carriers began shifting to the T3 terminal at the Delhi airport.
Installation of aerobridges, which has been the main cause behind the delay in commissioning the terminal, however, remains incomplete. At present, only seven of the 18 aerobridges are in place. According to Sharma, five more will be installed by January 20 and the rest before the terminal is fully commissioned in April.
Assuring fliers of a world class facility, Sharma said all major maintenance and operations work at the new terminal had been handed over to professional agencies. The two terminals that are currently in use cover 70,000 sq m while the new on spans over 2,33,000 sq m.
The existing staff will continue to manage the old domestic terminal, apron, hangar and other operational areas as well as the new fire station.
On airport development fee (ADF) and user development fee (UDF), Sharma said that while the former will not be levied on passengers, the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority will decide on UDF that is levied on operators. ADF forms a part of the viability gap funding to meet construction costs while UDF is charged to cover operational costs.
No comments:
Post a Comment