VASCO: The outgoing Director of Airport Authority of India (AAI), Goa, K S Rao, has acknowledged that Dabolim airport has been facing several issues that are hindering its growth. He also said that the issues were within the airport as well as the city side.
“In 2015, an international agency conducted a survey of all international airports and it ranked Dabolim International Airport at 34th position amongst 268 airports in the world (under 2 to 5 million passenger handling capacity category). This is a very proud achievement for Dabolim airport. However, when we talk about the issues pertaining to the Dabolim airport, then the first major issue that we face is the acute parking crises on the city side, which needs to be resolved at the earliest.”
He was speaking to reporters after officially handing over charge to the new airport Director Bhupesh C H Negi on Wednesday.
Rao further said, “Although we have a multilevel car parking facility at the airport, the same cannot be used due to pending security clearance. After consulting with senior AAI officials, we have now decided to write to the Goa government with a request to provide additional land next to the railway track and opposite the airport terminal building, and to merge our plans with the ongoing grade separator work, to create a parking facility for the people with proper access through a bridge from the parking lot to the airport building.”
Regarding the issues at the airport, Rao said, “Firstly, we need to have more operational timings. We have been proposing to extend our operational timing by an hour so that eight more flights can be accommodated. This will also reduce congestion of passenger traffic at the airport during peak hours. There is also a need to start the work of a parallel taxiway along the runway.”
