West Bengal Aviation

Wonderbank said:

^^ Its hats off.

Bro, let it first take off, tab batana how amazing it is.

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******

Adjusted
Thanx bro
Mine is typo error
& hers is a practically impossible thing to happen till 2050.
Becoz DPR of metro project will be ready by 2050.
Unless DPR is there, u won't get central fund.

NiladriG said:

Yes they should avoid CCU-RDP route completely. Its ridiculous and nonviable. They should start off with connecting DEL, BOM and MAA.

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Honestly, it has been and further on shall be absolutely nugatory to even have a CCU-RDP flight in the first place. Within Bengal, RDP can be connected to distant locations like IXB. But Kolkata is a mere 170 Km from Durgapur and down the line, an HSR (semi or otherwise) or other swifter means of conveyance like some quicker non-stop AC Coaches can do the trick just fine. At best, there can be provisions for chartered flights or Heli-taxi services (By the way, this holds good for services to other cities such as Ranchi, Dhanbad and Jamshedpur too).

The need of the hour is to upgrade the services of RDP itself to turn it into a more purposeful airport.

1. The airport firstly demands better road connectivity from the adjacent towns of Durgapur and Asansol (this means a separate quicker airport road apart from the NH - maybe an entire Ring Road for the twin cities, to be built & maintained by ADDA - which would also spark off some planned real estate activity in the future, especially around that Ukhra area in this case).

2. Up next, better road links to serve all nearby towns and districts such as Bankura, Purulia, Raghunathpur/Adra, Siuri, Bolpur, Bardhaman etc., which by the way, was the primary intention of the Andal airport in the first place.

3. With upgraded facilities and capacity at this airport, pax from all these towns and districts would then trigger, as already highlighted by fellow SSCians, flights to cities like DEL, BOM, MAA and even BLR, HYD or AMD, as per viability.

All these steps taken meticulously, and we'll have a profitably running airport at Andal. 'Wonder why our lawmakers & AAI do not take cue from similar instances within the country. Elsewhere, a Bengaluru-Mysuru flight never clicked, despite the two cities being major IT, educational, industrial and tourism hubs. But with a MAA/HYD connect in place, and ahoy, we have a successfully running flight today (all hail the UDAN scheme)! So much so that fights to other cities like Kochi are in demand, while Mysuru continues to be well-connected to BLR (airport) by the ever-efficient Flybus services by KSRTC.

All this requires effort and steps from the State Govt. and local administration too, which I'm not quite certain how much RDP airport can expect in the days to come, so it's all equivalent to building castles in the air for now. :dunno:

^^ Regarding a second airport for Kol metropolitan region, RDP will be a very bad option. Rather go for a new airport altogether, maybe somewhere as earlier proposed by the State Govt. near around Kalyani. Again, the same ol' requisites - better roads from the city, including expanding the Kalyani ExpWay upto 6 or more lanes, couple of elevated corridors along the way, with connections to the NH34 and the upcoming Dankuni-Kalyani ExpWay, and then probably build a Metro-link upto Kalyani down the line.

Merits of this location include proximity to towns like Behrampur, Murshidabad, Chinsurah, Bandel etc., and also the upcoming Vedic Temple at Mayapur. Not to mention it shall change the entire topography of Kalyani as a satellite town vastly. Besides, just like Mumbai, even this new airport could be just at a distance of 45-50km from the existing airport. However, as usual the mammoth challenge would be LA and the State Govt's blessing in it, so again it reduces to castles in the air as of now...

ayan92 said:

^^ Regarding a second airport for Kol metropolitan region, RDP will be a very bad option. Rather go for a new airport altogether, maybe somewhere as earlier proposed by the State Govt. near around Kalyani. Again, the same ol' requisites - better roads from the city, including expanding the Kalyani ExpWay upto 6 or more lanes, couple of elevated corridors along the way, with connections to the NH34 and the upcoming Dankuni-Kalyani ExpWay, and then probably build a Metro-link upto Kalyani down the line.

Merits of this location include proximity to towns like Behrampur, Murshidabad, Chinsurah, Bandel etc., and also the upcoming Vedic Temple at Mayapur. Not to mention it shall change the entire topography of Kalyani as a satellite town vastly. Besides, just like Mumbai, even this new airport could be just at a distance of 45-50km from the existing airport. However, as usual the mammoth challenge would be LA and the State Govt's blessing in it, so again it reduces to castles in the air as of now...

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Given the current state of transportation network and roads and railway lines, for vast number of fliers from South Kolkata, Howrah and southern suburbs, there will not be much difference between an airport in Kalyani and Andal airport.

From any location in South Kolkata , it takes atleast 3 hours or more to reach Kalyani and if you add a little more time, you can reach Andal.

Rather than investing a huge sum of money in building a new airport, let the money be invested in buying land adjoining to the current airport and extend it and let us try to build more runways in it.

Let us improve air connectivity of Andal, so that the passengers from Bardhaman Asansol area use Andal airport rather than Kolkata airport . In this way , we can reduce some pressure from Kolkata airport.

We can build an airport in Kalyani only after devolopment of good tranportation network like Metro to Kalyani and the current progress speed of Metro railway says that it is atleast 10-12 years away and it will take only 3-4 years for Kolkata airport to saturate.

WyomingBear said:

Why can't Durgapur get passengers to support a small aircraft like CRJ200?

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You're asking the wrong question.
If you ask the question
"Why is flying to Durgapur not worth the while of a small carrier like Zoom?", you may get a satisfactory answer.

The problem is that grass-root aviation in India is still an expensive affair and cannot match the low cost structures of behemoths like IndiGo. Overhead costs for a tiny airline like Zoom are much higher than 6E, etc., but they still have to compete in the same zone as 6E. This is why they stay away from the big routes - to try and reduce direct competition with the big airlines as much as possible. However, they cannot just fly to any odd airfield. They need to have a reasonably high average yield on each route in order to stay afloat. And hence pull out of RDP to look for better pastures..

Zoom Air cannot afford to keep supporting a new station like Durgapur in the hope that it will mature someday. This is why the RCS was drafted. Deccan's small turbo-props will be more suitable for RDP than a 50 seat CRJ..

With Viability Gap Funding on 50% seats, Durgapur will be able to support a small aircraft like the Beech 1900D.

NiladriG said:

Kolkata-Bardhaman bullet train will be unviable. MB just says things based on her whims and fancies. There are many trains and buses between Kolkata-Bardhaman. Kolkata-Siliguri would still be better. The problem is that there are no major cities with high income population around Kolkata. Mostly tier 2 and 3 cities. When the Andal airport is struggling for passengers, its outright foolish to ask for a bullet train service. Just because Modi has inaugurated bullet train in his state, MB also wants it.

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Why will it be unviable?
Mumbai Ahmedabad also has many buses, flights, trains running half empty. And connecting Andal-Durgapur region which is the industrial region of the state would help both Kolkata and these regions. And I am sure bigshots in these regions have must have gotten bore and would have enough to pay for Bullet train ticket which according to Hon'ble Union Finance Minister would be affordable for 80% of the population. Not to mention this route has already mentioned as part of Diamond Quadrilateral as proposed by Hon'ble Prime Minister. Not just because Mamta Banerjee proposes it becomes unviable amazing.:bash::bash:

^^ Contrary to media reports, Mumbai-Ahmedabad train section running at above 100% occupancy and will benefit immensely from Bullet train.



Source: Ministry of Railways

Hope facts are known before getting swindled by rhetoric which is the domain of some. And if Durgapur-CCU was so successful, the flights and pax load would have been an indicator. MamBa can only shoot and scoot.

NiladriG said:

Are there any flights to and fro RDP now? There is hardly any news about this airport.

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They just need to focus on connecting durgapur to other destinations of india and forget trying to connecting rdp to ccu (at most it could be transit stop). And for that to be viable, the SG should focus more on developing rdp..infrastructure...(meaning better roads, more residential townships, industries, services sector and make this city be regarded in the same breath like mumbai-pune.
the aero city is progressing well but it needs more and more investment..

Addl floor space, X-ray machines at Bagdogra

Next time travellers take a flight out of Bagdogra after visiting Darjeeling, Gangtok or the Dooars, the experience will be more pleasant than it's been during the tourist season. Endless queues at the registered baggage screening point, check-in desks and security check followed by jostling for seats at the security hold at Bagdogra airport have left many tourists miffed at their pleasant holiday experience being spoilt at the *** end of the trip.

Flooded with complaints this summer when traffic surged to a new high and the airport battled severe congestion, authorities have taken multiple measures to unclog several bottleneck points to improve the experience at the airport. On Friday, Airports Authority of India (AAI) regional executive director (east) K L Sharma unveiled several measures that had been taken at the airport. "We have doubled the number of X-ray machines to screen registered as well hand luggage and significantly increased space in the security hold area. Though the terminal is already saturated way beyond its capacity, these measures will give it some breathing space before issues are sorted out for a bigger new terminal," said Sharma.

Bagdogra airport director Rakesh Sahay said the new area that had been created by combining the restaurant and visitors' gallery would provide 150 additional seats to take the count to 650. "We can seat passengers of four flights, up from three now. We have also added a boarding gate to take the number of gates to four," he said.
The additional X-ray machines have similarly increased the baggage scan capacity from 1,200 (600 registered and 600 cabin) bags an hour to 2,400 bags an hour. The two old X-ray machines at the registered baggage screening point have been scrapped and four new ones have been installed in addition to two new machines at the security check point. At present, the airport has 20 flights daily. The flight count will increase to 22 this winter. Most of them are between 12pm and 4pm. The most congested period is between 2pm and 4pm when seven flights arrive and six depart.

Overall, the floor space in the terminal has increased from 5,400 sq metres to 6,000 sq metres. But it is still a squeeze as traffic at Bagdogra has been growing at a phenomenal pace. Between January and September this year, passenger count grew 62% against the numbers clocked in corresponding period last year.
"Bagdogra airport handled 1.5 million passengers in 2016. This year, we will comfortably cross 2 million which is twice the terminal's handling capacity. We are hoping the impasse over land is resolved so that a new terminal can be built," he said. AAI has asked the state to provide 100 acres adjacent to the airport to construct a new terminal and increase the apron area to create more parking bays. It plans to invest around Rs 1,500 crore for the expansion in three phases.

X-posting from WB Aviation thread...

Wonderbank said:

Addl floor space, X-ray machines at Bagdogra

Bagdogra airport director Rakesh Sahay said the new area that had been created by combining the restaurant and visitors' gallery would provide 150 additional seats to take the count to 650. "We can seat passengers of four flights, up from three now. We have also added a boarding gate to take the number of gates to four," he said.

The additional X-ray machines have similarly increased the baggage scan capacity from 1,200 (600 registered and 600 cabin) bags an hour to 2,400 bags an hour. The two old X-ray machines at the registered baggage screening point have been scrapped and four new ones have been installed in addition to two new machines at the security check point. At present, the airport has 20 flights daily. The flight count will increase to 22 this winter. Most of them are between 12pm and 4pm. The most congested period is between 2pm and 4pm when seven flights arrive and six depart.

Overall, the floor space in the terminal has increased from 5,400 sq metres to 6,000 sq metres. But it is still a squeeze as traffic at Bagdogra has been growing at a phenomenal pace. Between January and September this year, passenger count grew 62% against the numbers clocked in corresponding period last year.
"Bagdogra airport handled 1.5 million passengers in 2016. This year, we will comfortably cross 2 million which is twice the terminal's handling capacity. We are hoping the impasse over land is resolved so that a new terminal can be built," he said. AAI has asked the state to provide 100 acres adjacent to the airport to construct a new terminal and increase the apron area to create more parking bays. It plans to invest around Rs 1,500 crore for the expansion in three phases.

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Bagdogra airport sees 60% jump in flyer count

Kolkata: Bagdogra airport has recorded a 60% jump in passengers in April-October 2017 against the corresponding period last year, despite the three-month Darjeeling strike which crippled life and halted tourism in the Hills.

If the trend persists, the airport in north Bengal that serves as gateway to Darjeeling, Sikkim and Dooars may see passenger traffic swell up to 22 lakh in 2017-18, from 15.24 lakh in 2016-17. The airport is designed to handle 10 lakh passengers.

In January-October 2017, nearly 12.49 lakh passengers used the terminal, up from 7.83 lakh passengers who had travelled through Bagdogra in January-October 2016. In October, passenger traffic increased 44% from 1.27 lakh in 2016 to 1.84 lakh in 2017.

Airport director Rakesh Sahay said the growth had been mostly fuelled by the state government’s decision to remove VAT on aviation fuel sold at the airport. While the government had extended the same offer to Cooch Behar and Andal airports, it was Bagdogra that reaped the benefit and saw flights increase by 90%. Now, 22 flights operate to Bagdogra daily, up from 12 flights three years ago.

Bagdogra recently added extra floorspace in the security hold lounge and doubled the number of X-ray machines for both registered baggage and hand luggage. This has halved the queues. But given the pace of passenger growth, the relief will be temporary.

While the present terminal has 6,000sqm, Airports Authority of India (AAI) has proposed a new terminal of 24,000sqm that’ll increase the passenger handling capacity to 50 lakh per annum. AAI has been seeking 100acre land adjacent to the airport from the state government for the new terminal and more parking bays.

Source: TOI ePaper

Raju flags Bagdogra wall

- If Bengal gives land, airport can be expanded: Minister

Union civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said on Friday that lack of land was the sole constraint delaying the expansion of the Bagdogra airport.

"Only if the state gives us land can we move ahead with the expansion work here in Bagdogra. Without land, the problem of overcrowding cannot be resolved. I had personally called up the chief minister. But so far, we have not been provided with the required land," Raju said.

The state government has failed to make land available for a new terminal building at the airport, which has seen an over 60 per cent surge in passenger traffic in the first six months of the current fiscal.

The minister was speaking to newspersons at the Bagdogra airport before leaving for Delhi. He had come to Siliguri on Thursday and had been to Sikkim, where he met chief minister Pawan Chamling over the Pakyong airport near Gangtok, which has been readied.

"Our expansion plans are ready but land is required for that. We are not aware of any such facility that can be built in the sky," the minister said.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has been asking for land from the state government for the past few years.

"Initially, we had asked for 120 acres but were told that the state cannot provide so much land. We scaled down our project plan and asked for around 50 acres. Even that land has not been provided to us so far," said an AAI official.

On April 25 this year, AAI officials had held a meeting with the Bengal government where they had proposed the construction of a second terminal building. The state acted and two plots, measuring 50 acres and 52 acres, were identified.

"However, as none of the sites are contiguous with the existing terminal, we proposed to build a new terminal building to ease the pressure on the current one," the official said.

Bagdogra, which is the cheapest airport in the country in terms of Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) rates as the state has waived its cess to encourage more airlines, has witnessed an unprecedented rise in passenger traffic. In the current fiscal, that is from April to October, passenger traffic has increased by around 62 per cent from that in the corresponding period.

Told about Raju's comments, Bengal tourism minister Gautam Deb said: "We, too, are keen on the expansion of the Bagdogra airport but the state does not have so much of land at the site. We are holding talks with those who own land close to the airport so that the work can start at the earliest."