Comments
The Civil Aviation Ministry has said that expansion of the runway at the Mangaluru airport is not feasible.
Replying to queries by Nalin Kumar Kateel, BY Raghavendra and DK Suresh in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, Hardeep Singh Puri, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation (Independent Charge), said that the runway expansion at Mangaluru is not possible due to huge land fillings, high cost and operational challenges.
The Ministry had received a proposal from the local MLA to construct a new runway at the Mangaluru airport for wide-bodied aircraft. The local MLA had said the existing runway could be used for smaller aircraft, he said.
“The proposal was not found feasible owing to ‘dependent operation’ of the proposed new runway on the existing runway, rehabilitation of the project-affected parties, and the high cost of construction. It was found that despite these interventions the runway capacity would be enhanced marginally only,” he said in the reply.
It may be mentioned that the Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry has been urging the government to extend the runaway length of the Mangaluru International Airport from the present 2,450 metres to 3,050 metres.
To another question, the Minister said an Air India Express aircraft from Dubai to Mangaluru had had a runway overrun issue during landing in Mangaluru on June 30. This has been classified as a serious incident by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau. The incident is being investigated, he said.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.