City airport can breathe easy as Juhu plan takes off

MUMBAI: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) gave an in-principle approval on Wednesday to move smaller aircraft operations to Juhu airport by extending the runway into the sea. Juhu airport, started in 1928 and located adjacent to Mumbai international airport, has been non-functional for commercial operations.

“We have given an in-principle approval for moving smaller aircraft and ATR-72 operations to Juhu airport,” said VP Aggarwal, chairman, AAI. Total cost of the project is estimated around Rs 1,500-2,000 crore.

The move will help decongest Mumbai airport that handled 25.6 million passengers in 2009-10.

“Juhu airport is an asset which is underutilised. The move will help decongest Mumbai airport relatively. AAI needs to address cost and technical feasibility and structural issues of operations,” said Kapil Kaul, CEO, Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation.

The runway extension work will be done based on the final recommendations of consultancy major KPMG.
KPMG has proposed that the length of the runway will be extended to about 2,020 metres from the existing 1,143 metres, according to two people close to the development.

The new plan envisages extension of the airstrip into the sea to avoid environmental clearance issues. KPMG has suggested using concrete stilts for the extension work on the lines of the project being executed for the Chennai airport.

AAI plans to take the public-private participation route for project implementation. “The target for project completion is about two to three years. Juhu is to be used as the third runway for the Mumbai airport,” said an aviation consultant. KPMG has proposed tilting the Juhu runway clockwise to the north to allow simultaneous operations with Mumbai airport.

Though the operator of Mumbai airport, Hyderabad-based infrastructure company GVK, is very keen on taking up the redevelopment plan, officials close to AAI say the operator will be chosen through a competitive bidding based on revenue-sharing with AAI.

The long wait for Navi Mumbai airport has made it mandatory for the stakeholders to explore ways to decongest Mumbai airport. Moving out smaller aircraft will leave Mumbai airport with additional capacity. There are 20-25 general aviation (smaller aircraft) movements every day at Mumbai airport, constituting about 3-3.5% of the total 680 aircraft movements.

Longer runway occupancy and landing time for smaller aircraft reduce overall handling capacity of the airport, hampering movements of bigger aircraft as Mumbai operates on a cross-runway system.