TERMINAL PLANS
First Phase Of Work On Mumbais Integrated Airport Terminal Will Be Complete By 2010; Rest Will Take Two More Years …Sunando Sarkar & Manju V | TNN
Mumbai: Senior Mumbai International Airport Limited officials on Thursday laid out for TOI the yearby-year plans that would help them complete the citys first integrated airport terminal by 2012.
2008 will see planners and engineers starting on the demolition of a part of the international terminal at Sahar and integrating the other parts of the same terminal.
The international airport at Sahar is now divided into terminals 2A, 2B and 2C. MIAL will start demolishing terminal 2A and move operations to terminals 2B and 2C. Terminals 2B and 2C, incidentally, will also have to be demolished later to make way for Mumbais new 55 lakhsquare-foot terminal building.
2008 will also see construction of a taxi-track parallel to runway 14-32; this will substantially reduce the time you now have to spend on the runway in Mumbai. It will benefit fliers by reducing the time aircraft have to spend on the runway before take-off or after landing, MIAL managing director G V Sanjay Reddy said.
Something else will happen in 2008 that will make checking in less of a chore; it is the in-line baggagescreening system. This system will mean you do not need to have your baggage X-rayed before you check in. The screening, instead, will happen after you have checked in and handed over your luggage.
The facade of the existing terminals will also be done up in 2008.
MIAL hopes to finish constructing a new terminal (1C) at Santacruz in 2009. This will connect the current domestic terminals, 1A and 1B, and help MIAL provide aerobridges for a section of fliers taking off from 1B. There are also plans to have a conference hall in 1C that can accommodate about 100 people. Fliers often come here to attend meetings in South Mumbai and the drive from the airport to the meeting venue can take hours. This facility will help visitors save on that commute, Reddy explained.
But, just like many of the facilities at Sahar, this terminal may also be pulled down later though no final decision has been taken.
Mumbaikars, however, will have to wait till 2010 for getting real a taste of the future; that will be the year when the first phase of the new integrated terminal at Sahar will be ready.
This phase will take up around 15 per cent of the total area of the new terminal and, initially, handle only international flights, Reddy said on Thursday.
A new air-traffic control tower will also come up in 2010 and the old tower will be demolished. This will bring many more airlines to runway 14-32; they now refuse to use it because the existing tower is considered to be too close to the runway.
The second phase of Mumbais new integrated terminal is likely to be complete by 2011 and the last phase will be done by 2012.
And, when that happens, you will never need to go to the existing terminals at Santacruz; the new 55 lakhsquare-foot terminal will be your destination, irrespective of whether you are flying to Delhi or Damascus from Mumbai.
The giant X-shaped integrated terminal building will itself be an engineering marvel of the kind that Mumbai probably has not seen before. Some of the roof structures covering the terminal building will each be about 8 lakh square feet in area. More than 10,000 workers and 700 engineers will be working on the plan to make it happen.
THE FACILITIES
THE FACILITIES
The new terminal will make a world of difference to how you fly