The Airport
The airport currently consists of four terminals: domestic, international, an additional terminal for secondary traffic and a cargo terminal. The fourth terminal has been inaugurated and is now operational. The Cargo and the domestic terminals use the same airside facilities but are physically separated on the landside, requiring a five-minute drive between them whereas the new International terminal has been constructed on the opposite of the land side of the domestic terminal and both the terminals are interconnected by an underground moving walkway.
The airport was under renovation and now has 45 parking bays and both the international and domestic terminals have four aero-bridges each. The new terminal has been modelled on the Singapore Changi Airport, a major aviation hub in the Asia-Pacific region.
The new terminal has many firsts for the airport, including a half-kilometre-long moving walkway, which connects the two terminals, making the changeover of flights hassle-free. This will also help in making the airport as an international transit hub, in turn, reducing the burden at the Delhi and Mumbai airports. It will also have sufficient room to welcome the world’s largest commercial aircraft, the Airbus A380. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) will spend Rs90 crore to construct a brand new technical block which will enhance the flight handling capacity and provide better control of flights.
The airport handled 2.4 million passengers in 2007-08 and is expected to handle six million passengers in 2010 and nine million in 2012, including both domestic and international passengers. Of the total traffic at Ahmedabad Airport, 75% is domestic and 25% is international. The airport well meets the standards set by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
Read more about this topic: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport
Famous quotes containing the word airport:
“It was like taking a beloved person to the airport and returning to an empty house. I miss the people. I miss the world.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Airplanes are invariably scheduled to depart at such times as 7:54, 9:21 or 11:37. This extreme specificity has the effect on the novice of instilling in him the twin beliefs that he will be arriving at 10:08, 1:43 or 4:22, and that he should get to the airport on time. These beliefs are not only erroneous but actually unhealthy.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)