Madurai Airport will be extended soon
The Madurai airport in Tamil Nadu is to be upgraded to a world- class facility in a phased manner at a total cost of Rs.1.5 billion ($33.7 million), a senior official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said Tuesday.
We have the infrastructure in place, only customs need to be positioned at Madurai for it to become a full-fledged international airport,' K. Ramalingam, regional executive director of the AAI, told media persons here.
The plan envisages Madurai to be designated as an international airport and a major south Asian transit hub in the Indian hinterland within five years.
The official was speaking at the release of a PriceWaterhouseCoopers report sponsored by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to study the traffic potential of Madurai airport, about 500km south of here.
PWC's brief was to estimate the traffic potential of the Madurai and Tuticorin airports over the next 20 years. The study took into account the international and domestic air traffic for both passengers and cargo.
'It was observed that significant portions of air travellers from Tiruchirapally and Chennai airports (both international airports) belong to south Tamil Nadu,' the study stated.
In 2001, passenger traffic at Madurai was 90,800 and grew to 158,000 in 2005. The cargo traffic at the airport grew from 322.25 tonnes to 425 tonnes in the same period.
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