All airports to get night landing, navigation facilities

Civil aviation minister Praful Patel on Wednesday said night landing and navigation facilities would be available at all operational airports in the country within a year’s time. At present, there are 75 operational airports, of the total 124 civil airstrips in the country. Emphasising further improvement of air-connectivity in the country, Patel said although 60 airports —of the total 75 —are making losses, it was important for any region to have an airport. Currently, around 40 airports have night-landing facilities. Patel said VHF omni-directional range equipments and distance measuring equipments would also be installed at smaller airports.

“Night-landing facility across all airports is very important as it improves aircraft utilisation, thereby, saving costs. We will be able to fly to a larger number of airports if night landing and navigation facilities are available,” Air Deccan managing director GR Gopinath said.The minister also said that a new policy on regional airlines was ready and would be announced in April this year. He said airlines, which operate within a region, would be given special concessions for reduced landing, parking and navigation charges. According to Gopinath, a few years back 60% of the total traffic used to be concentrated in Delhi and Mumbai but now the growth is moving to the tier two and three cities and towns.

Courtesy: Financial Times

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