Ias Calcutta Hub Gears Up For New Fleet

The Indian Airlines eastern region headquarters at Calcutta is gearing up to install infrastructure to house its proposed new fleet. The airline has invested about Rs 15 crore to set up a new hanger which is due to be commissioned this month.

With other ground support infrastructure work being undertaken, Indian Airlines regional director (east) A Ghosh told Business Standard that the Calcutta hub station will soon be equipped with the necessary infrastructure to handle bigger aircraft.

He said that ideally the Calcutta hub station should be allotted 100-seater aircraft instead of the proposed 50-seaters. The new 100 metre by 80m hanger will primarily be used to house base aircraft, and is large enough to accommodate one jumbo aircraft or two 100-seaters.

The airline also has tentative plans to put up additional offices on the excess land that was not used for the hanger.

The fleet induction plans at Calcutta are part of the airlines overall plans to enhance and expand its fleet mix by the end of the century, in accordance with the recommendations of the Kelkar Committee Report.

The Indian Airlines board has formed a sub-committee to evaluate bids for 100-seater and 50-seater aircraft.

The sub-committee has already allotted Rs 30 crore as payment for 50-seaters.

The evaluation process for 100-seaters has already begun and the final report is expected to be presented next year. Hopefully the first batch of inductions will take place in 1999, Ghosh said.

Calcutta, which has for some time been hit by problems stemming from non-utilised workload following shortage of aircraft, has tried to alleviate the problem to some extent by diverting the workload to ground support activities.

The hub station has set up facilities like jet engine fueling station and auxiliary units for servicing A320 aircraft.

However, Ghosh emphasised, there was little scope of further aircraft utilisation without adding more aircraft to the fleet.

Other ground support infrastructure work includes bringing down old hangers. The renovation of a few hangers is also on the anvil.

The renovated hangers will be mostly used for repair and storage purposes. A new Rs 7 crore engineering unit is also expected to be commissioned in October this year.