Mangalore: 24-hour radar service at airport

The Hindu

• It will be available up to 256 nautical mile radius of Mangalore Airport

Mangalore, 01 September 2010: Mangalore Airport will be extending its radar service to over flying aircraft from the present 19 hours a day to 24 hours from Wednesday, according to its director M.R. Vasudeva.

Aircraft flying within a radius of 256 nautical miles from the Mangalore Airport can avail themselves of this round-the-clock radar service from September 1, he told.

This facility will be particularly useful for aircraft operating to Kozhikode, Kochi, Coimbatore and Panjim (Goa) airports, in addition to Mangalore. “It will also help aircraft operating to Bangalore International Airport, to some extent,” he said.

The service of mono-pulse secondary surveillance radar at the airport would help prevent collision of aircraft in air and maintain an orderly and expeditious flow of air traffic, Mr. Vasudeva said.

At present, the radar service is not available between 4.30 p.m. and 9.30 p.m.

Mangalore Airport had joined the club of major airports of the country when it extended its air traffic services from the Area Control Centre to flights from 13 hours to 24 hours from September 12, 2005.

Special counters
The airport will start collecting user development fee (UDF) from passengers boarding flights at Mangalore from September 1.

The UDF has been fixed at Rs. 150 a passenger in domestic route and Rs. 825 a passenger travelling abroad. It will be collected by respective airlines at the time of booking the tickets and later remitted to the Airports Authority of India.

Special counters will be set up at the airport from Wednesday for passengers who had booked their tickets in advance to help them pay the UDF.

This fee will be collected for 10 years, according to Mr. Vasudeva.