BAPL in talks with Indigo and Spicejet
Bengal Aerotropolis to be operational by July 2012
Bengal Aerotropolis Projects (BAPL) has initiated talks with SpiceJet and Indigo for starting operation at its proposed airport at Andal in the industrial belt of Asansol-Durgapur region of West Bengal, which is expected to be operational by July next year.
“We had talks with SpiceJet in the last week of April. There was a second round of talks with Indigo also at that time to start operation. The response was reasonably positive,” Subrata Paul, Chief Executive officer (CEO) and director of BAPL said.
BAPL in its proposal also suggested route plans to the airliners. “We have gone with the route plans of our partner Changi Airport Planners and Engineers. There are suggestions of Bagdogra-Durgapur-Delhi and Guwahati-Durgapur-Bangalore flights,” he said. Changi Airport Planners and Engineers is a subsidiary of Changi Airport International which enjoys a 26 per cent stake in BAPL.
Though, nothing has been finalised on this, Paul said, “A low cost airliner will be the first one to start the operation.” It is expecting passenger traffic of about 3.5 lakh in the first year of operation as it is banking on its huge catchment area of Durgapur, Asansol, Dhanbad and Kulti.
“The terminal will have 5 lakh annual passenger capacity. We expect that in 2012-13 the annual traffic will be somewhere around 3.5 lakh. This will increase over the years and the terminal has been designed in a way that the capacity can be increased to about 20 lakhs,” Paul noted.
The airport is expected to be operational by July 2012. “The first phase of the work is going on schedule. We are confident of completing the works of first phase by February, 2012. Then it will take about four months to commission the airport,” he added.
The project cost of the first phase, which includes construction of airport and initial infrastructure for the proposed township, is about Rs 600 crore.
After the completion of the first phase, the BAPL has plans to come out with an airport city which will have an IT park, hospitals and a residential complex.
It has already acquired 1820 acres of land for the project while total proposed project area is about 2300 acres.