International airport in Panvel may get saturated in 25 years: ORF Report
BS Reporter / Mumbai Aug 28, 2010, 00:27 IST
The proposed international airport at Panvel near Navi Mumbai has a planned capacity to handle 10 million passengers a year in the first phase of the project, which may get saturated in 25 years.
When that happens, there would be no space left around Mumbai to build a third airport, warned the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a public policy think-tank, in a recent report. According to the report, setting up an inadequately planned second airport at any site around Mumbai would be a disaster for the metropolis and would very adversely affect India’s economic growth.
“India expects to spend a mere $2 billion for a new airport for the commercial capital Mumbai, which might be grossly inadequate. Terminal 3 at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi had cost about that much, while Beijing’s terminal 3, the largest in the world, had cost $3.826 billion. Thailand, too, had spent $3.8 billion on setting up Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, an unusually low price for a complete airport, set up on boggy land,” says the report titled ‘Mumbai’s Second Airport: Too little, too late?’.
Among other alternatives, Mandwa-Rewas faces severe environmental and rehabilitation hurdles though it is a much better site with an area of 45 sq km and can ultimately handle 100 million passengers. The other site, Nevali, considered to have no major environmental or rehabilitation issues till now, needs to be studied in detail.
“The greenfield site at Panvel with a Phase 1 capacity of 10 million passengers is not a serious solution. We need an airport in the 100-million capacity range that can adequately serve the financial capital of the world’s second-most populous country,” the report quotes Giovanni Bisignani, director general and CEO of International Air Transport Association (IATA), as saying.
“A mid-sized airport can be completed from the start of construction to the start of operations in not less than about 36 months. Land acquisition issues still remain at Panvel, and a large part of the land at Nevali, too, will need to be acquired, which itself will be a lengthy process. Preparation of the detailed project report can begin only after all the clearances have been obtained for the airport,” the report, released here today, adds.
The current Mumbai airport is heading for a runway saturation by 2015. The airport’s two runways now handle about 32 aircraft movements per peak hour, with little potential for further growth to 40 movements. “The Mumbai airport may never be able to achieve 40 movements per peak hour,” according to the report. “To achieve that, it would have to achieve about 960 movements a day — at 40 movements an hour — for a 24-hour day. It would have to maintain that rate for 365 days a year.”
The airport had handled 26.5 million passengers in 2009, but may not achieve its anticipated capacity of 40 million passengers a year, given these constraints.
Highlighting the impressive developments taking place at mega airports in West Asia and Asia Pacific regions, the report urges the central and state governments to take a long-term view to ensure a capacity of at least 100 million passengers a year at the proposed airport — a norm for all major airports in the world.
In contrast, the 1,140-hectare land for the proposed airport in Panvel provides an ultimate passenger capacity of only about 50 million passengers a year.
While the advice of Mr. Bisignani is sound but seems theoretical at this stage in the context of Mumbai. Would it be wise to go back to square one at this late stage when the saturation of the existing airport serving Mumbai is staring in face? The appropriate course of action would be to construct the airport at the Navi Mumbai site at the same speed if not better at which the major expansion work was completed at Indira Gandhi International Airport serving Delhi and start planning for a 3rd airport of 100 million or more passenger handling capacity for Mumbai and safeguarding land therefor right at this stage, a dream though it may appear. It will take tremendous political willpower when it comes to safeguarding of land.
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