Aurangabad airport set to go international

With commencement of direct flights to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, the 100-year old Chikalthana aerodrome here is all set to join the category of international airports from November 21. Civil aviation minister Praful Patel will flag off the first direct international flight to Jeddah on the day. The Chikalthana airport would operate international flights to Jeddah between November 21 and November 30. Over 2,000 Haj pilgrims from Marathwada and neighbouring districts would catch the flight back from Jeddah to Aurangabad between January 4 and January 13,said the airport controller, Vivek Upadhyay. Though the Haj flights to Jeddah from Aurangabad were started in 2005, they were routed either through Mumbai or Nagpur. “Given the potential of the region and surrounding districts we could operate flights between Dubai and Singapore too, apart from domestic destinations like Hyderabad, Goa, Nagpur, Pune, Bangaluru or Delhi,” Upadhyay said. With the Rs 130-crore modernisation works almost complete, the airport is now able to handle bigger aircraft and more flights with ease,said Upadhyay. “Earlier we were operating from a 2000-squarefeet building. Now we have a 20,000-square-feet structure with all the facilities like passenger boarding bridge, escalators, flight information display (FID), car calling facilities to name a few,” he said. The airport would have a ‘commercially important person’ (CIP) section, a child care room and provision for duty free shop. The airstrip length is also being increased from 7,500 feet to 9,300 feet.