Aurangabad (IXU) | Chikkalthana Airport

[fuwad]

Skoda Auto India Plant Aurangabad.

Skoda Auto India Plant visible from air while approaching (landing) at Aurangabad Airport. Audi India also assembles its cars at this plant at 5 Star Industrial Area, MIDC Shendra, Aurangabad.
photo taken from Google Earth.

[ankushgupta]

What is offical name of this airport, I am afraid, kongresses would be naming it after some Gandy or Kehru.

[p2p4]

Originally Posted by ankushgupta

What is offical name of this airport, I am afraid, kongresses would be naming it after some Gandy or Kehru.

Gandhirajasthambha Vimaantal

[dhim100]

Weird name.

[fuwad]

Originally Posted by dhim100

Weird name.

Aurangabad Airport Is just known as "Aurangabad Airport".Just look in the photos which display the entrance to the airport and you will see the sign board displaying the correct name.
p2p4 is probably just joking !!

[zhiemi]

Lol yeah, that's too weird a name.

Very nice airport

[niknak]

Originally Posted by fuwad

Aurangabad Airport Is just known as "Aurangabad Airport".Just look in the photos which display the entrance to the airport and you will see the sign board displaying the correct name.
p2p4 is probably just joking !!

Yes he is. "Gandhirajasthambha Vimaantal" means "Gandhi-raja(king)-wait Airport" in Marathi.

[p2p4]

Originally Posted by niknak

Yes he is. "Gandhirajasthambha Vimaantal" means "Gandhi-raja(king)-wait Airport" in Marathi.

GANDHI RAJA-STHAMBHA = The PILLAR (Sthamba) of the KING of GANDHI (Dynasty).

Guys I was just kidding.. But I am praying to all the Gods and Goddesses and Apsaras of Ajanta & Ellora that Aurangabad Airport NOT be named with yet another Gandhi-Nehruvian clan.

India being a nation of 1.14 billion, I find it difficult that all big projects have to be dumped with Gandhi names. We have enough heroes from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Kutch to Kachen to choose from.. of past and recent.

BUT WAIT - being a on a lighter note... this could be a scenario for naming the airport :-

Congress picks the new name as AURANGZEB INTERNATIONAL.. (making the minority happy).
BJP - Shoots the new name down on religious grounds
Congress says - but but but.. Aurangabad is named after Aurangzeb. Why cant we name the AP after him?
MNS / SSena - Shoots Congress for picking up a tyrant's name and brings in Shivaji
BJP - No No No.. you already have a Chhatrapati Shivaji in Mumbai
Congress backtracks and renames the airport as KASTURBA GANDHI INT'L Airport.

Hmmm... sigh.. yawn.. zzzz


NOTE - Above is to be taken on a lighter note. I do NOT mean any disrespect to Kasturba Gandhi and neither to Mahatma Gandhi . They were in the league of their own . The current lot is in another league of their own.

[fuwad]

Skoda Auto India, Aurangabad.

Excuse me Mr. Moderator if I am moving away from the topic a bit, but this is just to highlight what a modern airport & better infrastructure can do to business and investment climate in a tire III city like Aurangabad.
German Auto major Volkswagen choose its subsidiary Skoda Auto’s Aurangabad plant to assemble its premium brand Audi in India.
Skoda Auto itself is in an expansion mode and has requisitioned more land from MIDC for its Shendra plant near Aurangabad.

Note the number plate having Aurangabad’s registration number. (MH-20 is the registration code allocated by RTO Maharashtra to Aurangabad.)

The Photo Speaks For Itself.


http://www.skoda-auto.co.in
http://www.audi.in

[Sridhar]

The Aurangabad airport is called the Chikalthana airport, after the name of the place where it is located. I happened to live in Aurangabad in the late 80s, when it was just starting off on its development trajectory. It was still not on the broad gauge network, and there were just two flights a day, one going from Bombay to Delhi (via Aurangabad, Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaipur) and another going from Delhi to Bombay on the same route. There was an evening Indian Airlines (Avro) flight to Bombay and a Vayudoot flight to Pune but these were short lived. The city and the airport have come a long way from those days!

[barrykul]

Originally Posted by p2p4

GANDHI RAJA-STHAMBHA = The PILLAR (Sthamba) of the KING of GANDHI (Dynasty).

Hmmm... sigh.. yawn.. zzzz

That was funny p2p4. I am tired of the Gandhi - Nehru naming spree. The Entire city of Hbad is named after them - Rajiv gandhi airport, gandhi/nehru highway etc. If you look at the achievements of the Kangress, they are miniscule/detrimental to Indian civilization, especially when we had Mauryan Kings, Asoka, Raja Raja Chola and other greats.

[fuwad]

About the Naming Issue…



Dr Rafiq Zakaria.

There has always been a demand from locals for naming the Aurangabad airport after Dr Rafiq Zakaria.
(Father of New Aurangabad Project).
But Govt. of Maharashtra is yet to take a call on the issue.
Dr. Rafiq Zakaria was a scholar & was closely associated with India's freedom movement, who spent over 25 years of his life in public service.

Dr. Zakaria was MLA from Aurangabad city and Minister for Urban Development in Govt. of Maharashtra. Later he also became a Member of Parliament. He had represented India in many countries and also at the United Nations in 1965, 1990 and 1996.

Dr. Zakaria had won the Chancellor's Gold Medal in the MA examination of Bombay University and received a Ph.D. from the University of London. He was called to the bar from Lincoln's Inn in England and practised law in Mumbai, where he was appointed Chief Public Prosecutor.

He was instrumental in development of New Aurangabad (CIDCO) as an Urban Development Minister which led to the planned development of the city and it’s Industrialization. He was associated with many educational institutions in India & started
Maulana Azad Educational Trust in Aurangabad.

He was father of Fareed Zakaria (Editor of Newsweek Magazine USA) & Arshad Zakaria.( New Vernon Capital LLC, USA).

Links to various institutions under Maulana Azad Educational Trust Aurangabad:
http://www.ihma.ac.in/indexflash.htm
http://www.mima.ac.in/mainmenu.swf
http://www.macabad.itgo.com/bs.html
http://www.tpicit.ac.in/

Links to website of Cidco:
http://cidcoindia.com/cidco/auranga.aspx
http://cidcoindia.com/cidco/home.aspx

[fuwad]

Newspaper clipping from asian voice.

Launch of Aurangabad - Hyderabad flight.

[p2p4]

I'd second the opinion of locals !! High time some worthy individual regardless of his religion / surname got his name associated with an infrastructure project - and an airport is no small fry !

[QUOTE=fuwad;36223234]About the Naming Issue…

There has always been a demand from locals for naming the Aurangabad airport after Dr Rafiq Zakaria.
(Father of New Aurangabad Project).
But Govt. of Maharashtra is yet to take a call on the issue.

[Sridhar]

I would support the naming of the airport after Rafiq Zakaria, who represented Aurangabad in the Legislative Assembly. He has also done much for the development of Aurangabad's infrastructure, including its educational infrastructure. It would be a fitting tribute to him.

Full Disclosure: My mother taught in a school established by Rafiq Zakaria and I have a personal fondness for him. But anybody who has read any of his numerous books will come away impressed with him. He was a thorough intellectual - a rare breed in politics nowadays.

[mooktada]

Leave it at aurangabad airport, that's it!! I am sick of these free for all naming squabbles that go on everytime a project gets complete

[Sridhar]

As far as I can see, there are no squabbles going on here.

[fuwad]

A piece of avation history, or should i say history in the making at aurangabad !!

Gusses how it all stated in Aurangabad!!

First flight in Aurangabad City In the year 1911. !!!

In that year the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, in order to demonstrate the new art to the General Staff in India, sent out to Calcutta an expedition consisting of a manager, the French pilot Monsieur H. Jullerot, two British mechanics, and three Bristol box-kites fitted with 50 horse-power Gnome engines. The first aeroplane was erected on the Calcutta racecourse, and flew in the presence of a huge crowd of spectators.

There were cavalry manœuvres that year in the Deccan, and General Rimington, who was organizing them, set aside a part of his manœuvre grant to enable Captain Brancker to bring an aeroplane and take part in them.

The aeroplane arrived at Aurangabad early in January 1911,. Perhaps world’s first reconnaissance flights took place in it on January 15 and 16. The Boxkite was assembled in open ground next to the Aurangabad railway station and was hastily erected under a tree by the two mechanics, assisted by six willing and jocular privates of the Dublin Fusiliers. It was ready forty-eight hours after detrainment, just in the nick of time. The first flight was made by M. Jullerot and Captain Brancker, the day before the manœuvres began, in the presence of twelve generals, one of whom was Sir Douglas Haig, at that time Chief of the Staff in India, and a numerous company of staff (p. 422) officers. Next morning the aeroplane was attached to the northern force at Aurangabad, whose task was to drive back the rearguard of a southern force retreating towards Jalna. Captain Brancker and M. Jullerot made a flight of about twenty-seven miles at a height of 1,100 feet, and the hostile rearguard was accurately located. A full report was in the hands of the commander of the northern force in less than an hour and a half from the time of his demand for information.

Subsequent flights were less successful; indeed, the next morning the aeroplane crashed from a height of a hundred feet; the two aviators escaped with a few scratches, but the machine was reduced to matchwood. Nevertheless, the first thorough performance by a military aeroplane of a really practical military mission deeply impressed General Sir O'Moore Creagh, the then Commander-in-Chief, and, had it not been for lack of money, he would have started a flying organization in India a year before the Flying Corps in England came into being.

(Extracts from: The Project Gutenberg e-Book of The War in the Air, Vol_ 1; Author Walter Raleigh.)
Note : Aurangabad was then part of Nizam's Hyderabad & thus the event is part of Hyderabad's avaition history too.

[fuwad]

Air traffic movements Aurangabad, November 2008.
Domestic Aircraft movements at Aurangabad increased by 46.4 % for the month of November 2008 vis a vis November 2007.

Domestic + International Aircraft movements at Aurangabad Airport.
Aircraft movements November 2007 – 2008.
November 2007 – 250.
November 2008 – 386.

From April 2007 to November 2007 – 2091.
From April 2008 to November 2008 - 2696.

[fuwad]

Domestic + International passenger movements Aurangabad, November 2007- 2008.

November 2007 –17522
November 2008 - 18477

April 2007 to November 2007 - 121237
April 2008 to November 2008 – 125465