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| Jammu’s local bus stop …..Airport…..calls for attention | | |
NIRBHAY JAMMUAL
Jammu, July 9: As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrives in the City of Temples on Tuesday, he may see for himself that the winter capital city needs a facelift and its gateway for the plush visitors –the airport –needs the much awaited modernisation and expansion.
In our Monday edition we had pointed out that while efforts are being made to modernise the Srinagar airport to meet the international standards, the Jammu airport, which receives more passengers on a daily average, has been relegated to a local bus stop.
With increasing frequency of flights and more airliners planning to touch the ground in this Temple City, the Jammu Airport authorities are finding it difficult to cater the needs and demands of the passenger’s flying in different airlines. Another factor, which has always been a cause of worry, is the hovering of the flight over the airport due to the landing difficulties.
With more and better affordable pocketed people planning their visits to Jammu, the local airport is now hosting at least five airlines landing at its base every day. Spread over an area of 88.699 acres, Jammu airport is located at an elevation of 956 ft. the runway of the airport is manned by the Airport Authority of India.
The airport terminal has capacity to accommodate not more than 500 passengers at one time. That includes 250 arriving passengers and 250 departing passengers. This amounts to availability of infrastructure for two airlines only i.e. Indian airlines and jet airways. However, these days the daily influx is more than thrice the capacity offered by existing infrastructure.
Presently, at least, five airlines are operating in Jammu and Kashmir which includes recently added Air Sahara, Air Deccan and spice jet. The addition has led to passengers preferring airlines than railways. Hence the rush has increased tremendously at the airport with people preferring low fare carriers.
With the graph of terrorist violence decreasing, the influx of tourists is bound to take an upward lead. The officials at the airport are ruing the insufficient terminal at this time when there are five airlines. Here one ponders what would be state of affairs at the airport when kingfisher airlines would make an entry into the state.
Any visitor to the airport can recall the chaos when flight to any destination is cancelled due to bad weather or any other reason. The lounges are packed to the full and one could easily see toddlers searching for a little space for themselves. Older people had to face all the problems from finding a seating space for themselves to standing up. The other factor that one would notice easily was that the airport authorities were found struggling to manage the passenger traffic during heavy rush hours.
According to authorities due to inadequate staff and infrastructure, passengers have to face problems. Though they say that expansion of terminal building and increasing the number of landing bases from current to at least five or six would solve the problem. But the question that remains there is that whether the same would happen or not? After all it is Jammu airport.
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