Shamshabad grounded

TNN / Mar 15, 2008, 00:39 IST

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Highly placed sources, however, told TOI that the ministry has told GMR Group, the principal private promoter of the airport, to put on hold commercial operations until further notice.

HYDERABAD: In a stunning anti-climax, the Union civil aviation ministry announced barely minutes after Shamshabad international airport was inaugurated by Congress president Sonia Gandhi here on Friday that commercial operations from the new airport has been "delayed by a few days because of operational reasons."
Highly placed sources, however, told TOI that the ministry has told GMR Group, the principal private promoter of the airport, to put on hold commercial operations until further notice.

The late evening announcement in New Delhi adds a new twist to the controversy surrounding the opening of the new airport, including the fate of the existing Begumpet airport as well as the lack of road connectivity to the new airport, a fact that was acknowledged by several speakers at the inauguration ceremony including the Congress president.
Incidentally, apart from Sonia Gandhi, civil aviation minister Praful Patel too was present at the event. And it was an irony of sorts when even as Patel was speaking of how the new airport would boost the aviation sector in the country, his ministry was preparing the communique to GMR Group to put on hold commercial operations.

Shamshabad airport was scheduled to have gone commercial from the midnight of Saturday with Lufthansa's flight from Frankfurt making the first landing at 0025 hours. The same flight was scheduled to take off from the new airport at 2.25 am. Now, with the decision of the ministry, the flights will have to operate from the existing airport at Begumpet.
While it is not clear as to how long the operation of commercial flights from Shamshabad airport would be delayed, GMR Group was confident that the matter would be resolved in a few days time. In a statement, GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL) said: "Rajiv Gandhi International Airport is ready in all aspects. We understand that some airlines have approached the ministry seeking more time to begin their operations from the new airport. Acceding to their request, the ministry has advised us to begin operations in a few days. We will intimate the new date and start operations soon."

Returning to New Delhi from Hyderabad, civil aviation minister Patel told TOI that the delay would not be beyond 10 days.
"Some airlines requested for time to shift to the new airport and that beginning operations from Saturday midnight may not be a completely smooth affair for them. I did not want complaints from passengers that some airline machinery is not working because of the shifting trouble. The airport is fully ready, but it will now begin operations within a maximum of 10 days," he said.
Though no formal communication has come to Begumpet airport so far, senior officials of the airport told TOI that the message can as well come on Saturday morning.
While the new airport's inauguration has been hurried to create a history of sorts by doing so in flat three years, there have been issues particularly in terms of clearances from the DG of Civil Aviation.
Among various reasons, the DGCA has also found fault with the presence of a drain near the end of the runway. Also, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a UN specialised agency focusing on the safety in civil aviation, is yet to submit its report on the drain. Based on this, the DGCA has granted only a provisional clearance to the airport while a final clearance is still awaited. In fact, GHIAL, which has developed the airport, has completed and kept it ready for operations in a period of 36 months from the day it commenced civil works on 5,495 acres earmarked for the airport. Though connectivity is being seen as a major issue before the airport, most part of the laying of new roads is being carried out by the government agencies, which have not been able to meet the deadlines.

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