Oct 11, 2010: Chandigarh airport authorities are announcing that the airport will be ready to start international flights with full infrastructure, including night landing, from January. This news comes after the airport’s failed attempt to begin international service last year.
At that time, Fly Dubai airlines stated that it wanted to start flights between Chandigarh and Dubai. Poor infrastructure cancelled these plans. Night landing facility and segregated spaces for international passengers, security staff, and immigration officials were not available for the planned flights.
Officials said the large presence of NRIs in the area meant that flights to other major foreign destinations were a possibility.
Sunil Dutt, Director of Chandigarh Airport, says that last year’s unavailable infrastructure will be in place in a new integrated terminal. Dutt said that the integrated terminal would include space for immigration centre where passports, visas, and baggage are checked and necessary security staff as well as a separate path for international passengers, two aerobridges for boarding, and nigh landing capacity. He also added that there will be navigation instruments for dealing with low visibility conditions.
Dutt also said that since operations were possible 24 hours a day, the renovated local airport terminal would be able to host flights to Canada, USA, Malaysia, UAE, and Bangkok.
Fly Dubai originally proposed to start its international flight from July 23, 2009 and there was a lot of excitement in anticipation of the first takeoff. There was a big let-down when the fight was canceled due to non availability of necessary facilities. Additionally, the Air Force, citing security concerns, would not allow night landing.
Infrastructure inadequacies were due to non-completion of renovation work at the local airport. Officials of the Airport Authorities of India have set December as the completion deadline for this work. Offers from global airlines are expected in the meantime, and these will help to launch international operations as soon as January.
11 daily flights currently operate from the city, connecting it to domestic destinations including Delhi, Mumbai, Jammu, and Srinagar. Air India, Kingfisher, Jet Airways and Go-air are the major airline companies operating from the local airport.