TIA gears up with extension plans

To manage the swelling number of passengers, Tribhuwan International Airport (TIA) is gradually moving ahead with its plan to manage the passenger crowd at the country’s only international airport.

Among a series of management plans, TIA on January 18, will start the construction of its new domestic terminal building, said general manager of TIA Ratish Chandra Lal Suman. The domestic terminal will be constructed utilising the resource of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN).

“CAAN has estimated a sum of Rs 105 million for the construction of the domestic terminal building,” said director general of CAAN Tri Ratna Manandhar. “Construction of the domestic terminal building is under our TIA extension plan and we have estimated that it will take around one year to complete it,” Manandhar said.

Meanwhile, TIA management is also gearing up to start a new car parking site. “The new parking area will be near the international terminal building and will be started from February 15,” said Manandhar.

Lack of proper infrastructure and increasing air traffic along with the passenger crowd in the airport has created problems with airport management. In 20 years, the number of airlines and air traffic has increased by 500 per cent but nothing substantial has been done at TIA to improve its infrastructure.

To develop the infrastructure at TIA, CAAN has also planned to invest Rs one billion.

To manage the crowd, TIA on November 25, 2012, also restarted its visitor’s deck facility.

The visitor’s deck at TIA, which is under the management of Kritika Enterprises, will help TIA generate a total revenue of Rs 41.0 million in three years.

TIA, in 1998, had closed the visitor’s deck due to building extension work. However, even after the extension work was completed, it failed to reopen the facility due to various issues. Finally, citing huge crowds of visitors to see off passengers at the airport terminal, the management decided to open the deck in 2010.

Similarly, to properly manage the growing crowd at TIA, it has also started expanding the runway which is an Asian Development Bank project. The project also includes fixing the central line light for night operations.

Currently, TIA is operated for three shifts in a day and it was planning to start a fourth shift for those airlines who wanted to shift their peak hour flights to the fourth shift, which could minimise the air passenger crowd during the day shift.

“The plan to start 24-hour operations at TIA is mainly to reduce congestion during the day,” states TIA. The only international airport of the country handles 30 international flights and seven regular domestic airlines. During the peak season, there are more than 450 arrivals and departures, where as in general, arrivals and departures at TIA stand at around 350.

source: The Himalayan Times,15 Jan 2013