New Hyderabad Airport on schedule

No surprises from GMR. The airport inaugration is on schedule, now get ready to drive to Shamshabad in about a month's time. Will the time on road to the airport equal to the flight time(local travel in India). ?????? Most likely until the authorities speed up the various transport bottlenecks.



Source : Deccan Chronicle


Hyderabad, Feb. 7: The Shamshabad airport will be ready for trial runs on February 12, a full month before its formal inauguration by the UPA chairperson, Mrs Sonia Gandhi. The GMR Group, which executed the Rs 2,478-crore Rajiv Gandhi International Airport project, will perform a puja on Saturday to propitiate the gods ahead of the trial runs and for a smooth opening on March 16. Officials from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation are to inspect safety norms at the greenfield airport soon.

Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines are set to conduct calibration tests on February 12 as part of the trial operations, with the Union minister for civil aviation, Mr Praful Patel, and the Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, in attendance. Senior civil aviation officials will verify data from the tests to determine whether the new airport is ready for commercial operations.

GMR officials said over 96 per cent of the airport work has been completed. The rest will be completed soon. “The airport will be right on schedule. It has been designed to cater to 12 million passengers and 1 lakh tonnes of freight per annum in the first phase,” said Mr Raja Gopala Swamy, chief financial officer of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited.

“The new airport will be operational at 12.01 am on March 16. We are now working with our partners to enhance passenger experience,” he added. Lufthansa will be the first airline to fly out of Shamshabad airport. A direct flight between Frankfurt and Hyderabad is scheduled to arrive at the new airport at 12.25 am on March 16. It will take off at 2.00 am. The airport will be inaugurated by Mrs Gandhi on March 14