Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport - Expansion and Renovation

Expansion and Renovation

International flights have increased in recent years. The arrivals section of the old terminal was inaugurated in September 2005, and the departures section was made operational in March 2006. The Airport registered a passenger growth of 64.6% during April–December 2009 which made it the fastest growing airport in India. The new terminal is a blend of modern and Indian designs, constructed of glass and steel, but with Indian arches and colours.

A new integrated terminal building was inaugurated on 25 February 2009, with an area of approximately 40,175 square metres (432,440 sq ft) compared to 12,770 square metres (137,500 sq ft) previously. The new terminal building is a glass and steel structure equipped with a central air conditioning system, an inline X-ray baggage inspection system integrated with the baggage conveyor system, escalators, a public address system, a Flight Information Display System (FIDS), CCTV for surveillance, check-in counters with Common Use Terminal Equipment (CUTE), and car parking.

The integrated terminal building at Amritsar has a peak hour passenger handling capacity of 1,200 passengers and annual handling capacity of 1.46 million passengers. The integrated building has 30 check-in counters, 4 X-ray scanners (for baggage), 26 immigration Counters, 10 custom counters, 12 security check booths, and 4 conveyor belts for arrivals. The apron has been extended to cater for parking of a total of 14 aircraft (8 Category ‘E’, 3 Category ‘D’ and 3 Category ‘C’ types of aircraft) from the earlier capacity of ten aircraft and strengthened for parking of Category ‘E’ type of aircraft. The departure and arrival halls have a facility for duty free shops. The departure hall also accommodates foreign currency exchange, a book store, restaurants and other shops for the convenience of departing passengers.:. The airport also has:

• A brand new cargo handling facility due to demands from exporters in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, who have no alternative apart from Delhi which is too far away.
• The site for the Permanent Perishable Cargo Center is located close to the air cargo complex, which has a capacity of 200 tonnes (200 long tons; 220 short tons) per day.
• Passenger terminal building size now doubled to 41,000 square metres (440,000 sq ft).
• Four new aerobridges are installed out of which two are operational.
• Parking bays now increased from 5 to 14 by 2009.
• The runway extended by 369 metres (1,211 ft) to a total length of 3,658 metres (12,001 ft).
• A new car park for passengers and visitors

The development and modernization plans are for the city-side of these non-metro airports and was completed by 2010, through a public-private partnership (PPP). AAI will take care of the airside development of the airports.

The government wants the consortium of the selected bidder and the AAI to commercially operate the airports and maintain their terminal buildings. It would also be responsible for developing and operating cargo facilities at these airports, besides undertaking the city-side development.

Airports Authority of India (AAI) had placed orders for equipment required for a CAT II Instrument Landing System (ILS) from a German based flight safety equipment firm Thales. The ILS became operational on 23 December 2011. The upgrade of the system to Category II required improving the airport infrastructure, the removal of obstacles in and around the airport and training for the air traffic controllers and maintenance personnel.

The system has reduced the visibility requirement for an aircraft landing at Amritsar Airport from the existing 650 metres to 350 metres benefiting airlines in terms of increased safety and avoiding diversions to other airports resulting in better operational and environmental efficiency.

The airport modernization process is part of the upgrade process of 35 non-metro airports in the country by 2010.