Goa airport taxiway to be ready by November, may lead to more flights

PANAJI: At Goa’s lone airport at Dabolim, the 3.43km-long taxiway, being constructed parallel to the runaway will be complete and ready for use by next month, contractor Dilip Buildcon said. Once the taxiway is ready, it will help the Airports Authority of India (AAI) increase the number of flights at the airport.
The aircraft will be able to use the taxi track and it will cut down on delays as aircraft won’t have to backtrack on the runway.The airport sees around 180 flights per day and it goes up to 190 a day during the charter season, which began last week.
“The taxiway will facilitate easy landing and take-off and will be a boon to Goa’s tourism sector. Presently, flights are also kept on hold for traffic to pass from a road that cuts through the airport area. As part of the works, a peripheral road has been developed and the local traffic will no longer affect flight movement,” Dilip Builcon vice-president (constructions) Atul Joshi said.
Joshi said the environmental clearance for the project was recieved in January 2018, after which the work could begin.
The taxi track project includes three parking bays for aircrafts at the AAI airport. The project has been constructed at a cost of Rs 125 crore, lower than the original estimate of Rs 140 crore, Joshi said.
“Concrete of 500mm thickness has been laid to carry the weight of the aircraft movement,” he said.
Initially, the AAI was expected to allow aircraft to use the taxi track and the three bays by March 31 and it was thought it would be ready for the tourist season by October.
But as the charter season has already started, Joshi said that first phase of the project will be open for use ‘any time now’ and the entire project will be in use by November, which is next month.
The AAI took up the work to build the parallel taxiway to be able to operate more flights from the airport which is part of the Naval air base, INS Hansa.