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Goa’s upcoming second international airport receives first commercial test flight
Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant has recently said that the international airport at Mopa will be operational either later this year or early next year
Goa’s upcoming international airport at Mopa successfully completed a Required Navigation Performance (RNP) on Monday with the landing and take-off of the first commercial aircraft from its runway, officials said. Once operational, it will be the second international airport in Goa after the one in Dabolim.
An Airbus A320 aircraft from Indigo Airlines tested and validated RNP at Mopa on Monday.
“Today, we have successfully completed the Required Navigation Performance Procedure at the upcoming New Goa International Airport. RNP approach ensures integrity and accuracy and helps an aircraft to follow specific paths using board equipment. This procedure not only offers safety benefits by means of its precision and accuracy, but it also enhances operational efficiency by minimising multiple step-downs, and inaccurate circling approaches etc,” said the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Goa GMR International Airport, R V Seshan.
The much delayed airport was initially expected to be completed within 36 months of the work order being handed over, which took place in August 2016, meaning that the airport was to be completed sometime in 2019-2020. However, the project was delayed--initially after a stay was granted by the Supreme Court owing to environmental concerns which led to a delay by more than a year, and was given a fresh timeline to be completed “somewhere between the end of 2021 and early 2022”.
Chief minister Pramod Sawant, who had said that the airport would begin operations in August this year, has recently said that the airport will be able to be completed either later this year or early next year.
GMR Airports Ltd, a wing of the Bengaluru headquartered GMR Group has bagged the tender to design, build, finance and operate Goa’s upcoming Mopa Greenfield Airport promising the state 36.99% revenue share once the airport is operational.
Once the RNP procedure is drawn for a particular runway of an aerodrome, it needs to be tested and validated for its accuracy and flyability through simulator and actual aircraft trials. During this process, the defined flight path is tested by flying an aircraft equipped with RNP equipment, in accordance with the procedure developed. Upon successful validation and approval, the procedures are published and promulgated for use by all airlines, GMR said in a statement.
“Validating such procedures by an aircraft at a greenfield airport needs an immense amount of ground work in terms of planning, preparation, readiness, testing and precision execution. With this successful RNP flight our team at the New Goa International Airport has achieved a very important milestone towards commissioning of the airport,” the statement said.
The 2nd international airport for Goa proposed to be set up at Mopa village in the extreme north of Goa, 35-km from the state capital Panaji, has been opposed by activists ever since it was first conceived in May 2000. The airport was scheduled to replace Goa’s existing Dabolim airport, which is also a Navy base, however, owing to opposition the earlier decision was modified to allow for the continuation of civilian aircraft operations at Dabolim.
The new airport is set to cost around ₹3,300 crore of which the first phase will cost around ₹1,800 crore and will handle around 3.4 million passengers. By the fourth phase, the airport is scheduled to have a capacity of 13.1 million passengers by 2045.
