Abid Bashir
Srinagar, Mar 29 : Amid huge tourist influx to Kashmir in the ensuing month, Srinagar International Airport has registered record flight operations on March 28—the busiest ever day in the history of Airport.
The development comes a day after news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) reported that the March month of ensuing year has broken the ten-year-old record of tourist arrivals as Kashmir was witnessing bumper tourism.
The record arrivals of passengers, especially domestic tourists to Kashmir, has pushed the Airport Authority on tenterhooks to upgrade the existing infrastructure to address the issue of congestion and to begin with additional terminal building is being constructed at the cost of whopping Rs 1500 Crore.
Talking to news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) exclusively, Director of Srinagar International Airport, Kuldeep Singh said that for the first time in the history of Srinagar airport, 90 flights with 15014 passengers on board were recorded on March 28.
“We handled 45 arriving flights with 7824 passengers and 45 departing flights with 7190 passengers on March 28. A total of 90 flights with 15014 passengers makes it the busiest day in our history,” he said. “This was just beginning of the summer schedule.”
Singh said that this was for the first time that such a record number of flights operated from the Srinagar airport.
“Our concern is to ensure there is no congestion at the airport. For that, we are upgrading the infrastructure and placing help desks at several places to ensure each pilgrim is facilitated,” he said. “A new building is also coming up to accommodate more passengers. That will help address the issue of congestion. At present we are ensuring that there is no congestion at the airport and for that a series of steps have been taken.”
He said March 28 broke the previous record of this year when 13700 passengers arrived and departed from the airport. “The figure is likely to increase as the summer schedule has just begun,” Kumar said. The record number of arrivals and departures at the Srinagar airport comes a day after KNO broke the story that the ensuing month of March has registered record number of tourist arrivals , first time in the past ten years. Singh said that since the main concern is to facilitate passengers smoothly, the Airport Authority is going to ensure construction of additional terminal building at the cost of Rs 1500 Cr on fast track basis. “We also expect increase in the flight operations from existing 45 to 55 which means, 55 fights would depart and same number would take off as well in a day,” he said.
He said that at present the airport has nine parking slots and six more are being added. “We will be having 15 parking stands for the planes which means Airport can park 15 planes at a time. At present, only nine planes can be parked,” Singh said. He also said that the Airport authority is trying to get control of the road stretch presently under CRPF. “We are at it. If we get, we will deploy our own staff on the stretch to facilitate the flow of passengers,” he said—(KNO)
