E-Paper
Mumbai to Sindhudurg in 50 minutes; Flight bookings full till Oct 21
PUNE The next time you want to hit the beach – the Chipi airport in Sindhudurg district will be one of the options for weekend revellers
PUNE The next time you want to hit the beach – the Chipi airport in Sindhudurg district will be one of the options for weekend revellers.
The airport is 50 minutes from Mumbai by air and goes ‘live’ October 9.
Allianze Airlines is operating flights out of Chipi right now and bookings are full till October 21.
The formal inauguration of the airport, by Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and Union aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia is on October 9.
The airport is located in Chipi village uner Vengurla tehsil and apart from the local attractions, Goa is 95km away.
The airport came up under the Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer (DBFOT) model, with a runway that is 2,500 metres long and 45 metres wide, and can further be extended by 1,000 metres.
The passenger-handling capacity is 400 pax or two flights per hour, with aircraft like the Airbus A-320 and Boeing 737 cleared to land.
Kiran Kumar Chikkote, director, Sindhudurg airport said, “The first flight is by Allianze Airlines with an ATR 72 aircraft which will land here at 1 pm from Mumbai. It will return to Mumbai at 2 pm on the same day. Depending on passenger load, other airlines will come in. People around the Sindhudurg are enthusiastic, as it has been a long-pending demand.”
Sindhudurg district has 21 beaches. “The airport will put Sindhudurg just 50 minutes way from Mumbai. In the next five years there will be 20 to 25 flights operating from this airport,” said Chikkote.
The airport is an “all-weather airport” that received clearance from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
Currently, it has been given visual flight rules (VFR) for day operation permission, and later on looking at the load factor, it can get instrument flight rules (IFR) for night operation permission, according to officials.
According to Chikkote, the airport design is for both day and night flight operations, and can handle domestic and international flights as well. “There is a vision of another 90 years ahead while building this airport,” he added.
IRB Sindhudurg Airport is a special purpose vehicle of IRB Infrastructure Developer that was formed and mandated with the task of project development and operations.
Virendra Mhaiskar, chairman and managing director (CMD) at IRB had earlier said, “We are very happy to achieve yet another milestone in the current year and see the airport receive the licence to operate after successful completion. We now look forward to opening the facility for airline operators and the general public soon.”
Speaking about starting of cargo services from the airport, Chikkote said, it may take some time to operationalise. “As we all know there are three major products here - mangoes, cashews and fisheries. We have plans to start the cargo though it may take some time. Everything being produced here goes to Mumbai and from there to the international market. We have provisions and enough space to start cargo services. As per the load factor and response to the flights these further decisions will be taken,” Chikkote said.
