Airports Authority of India approves extending taxiway at MIA to 2,400 mts

 

Mangaluru, 16 Jul 2016: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has approved the extension of taxiway being built now to 2,400 meters long.

 

Taxiway is the stretch or the track connecting the runway with the apron (parking stand for Aircraft) in the terminal building. Aircraft use the taxiway for entry and exit from the parking stand to the runway.

 

It is informed that the additional taxiway being built at the airport since August 2014 was 1200 meters long and 23 meters wide. The work is expected to be completed in the next two months. The Airports Authority board has now agreed and approved to extend the taxiway further by another 1,200 meters to make it a 2,4OO-meter long taxiway.

 

The current first phase of work is under progress and is being implemented at a cost of Rs 40 crore while the second phase of work would cost Rs 106 crore as a 35-foot deep valley would have to be filled.

 

The additional taxiway particularly helps the aircraft in saving time in the entry and exit from parking stand to the runway. As of now, aircraft that are ready to take off have to wait for 10 -15 minutes if their departure timings clashed with a flight that is scheduled to land, due to procedures involved and it has to wait till the arriving plane completes its course on the runway and rolls into the apron.

 

With the construction of the additional taxiway, aircraft could move from the parking stand, wait in the additional taxiway and enter the runway for takeoff immediately after the plane that has landed exits the runway. Once the additional taxiway is ready, there would be separate and fixed entry and exit paths. Land required is already available with the airport and no additional land was needed.

 

This additional taxiway particularly helps in the long run when the number of flights increases at the airport. Presently 48 movements are there in a day (24 arrivals + 24 departures). New flights to Sharjah will be commissioned from August 7, 2016.

 

Bids for taking up the second phase of work were likely to be called in the month of October. The work is likely to begin from January or February next and will be completed in a year.