Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Capt Amarinder has sought operation of international flights from Guru Ram Das International Airport Amristar. Capt Amarinder led a delegation of party leaders yesterday to meet the union aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju in New Delhi and also submitted a memorandum to him. Capt Amarinder was accompanied by Sukh Sarkaria, Navtej Singh Cheema and Sukhpal Bhullar.The PCC president told the minister that the airport services the tourists and devotees from all over the world. “The geographical location of this airport is such that it is beneficial for all the passengers who wish to fly to European, American and Middle-Eastern Sectors as all the flights from Delhi towards the said sectors fly over the airspace of Amritsar itself and have to fly 40 minutes more”, he said.He suggested to the minister that negotiations should be initiated with airlines to start direct flight operations from Amritsar to Toronto, Birmingham, London, Singapore, Bangkok, Perth, Melbourne etc so that passengers who wish to fly to these destinations should face no inconvenience
The Amristar MP told the minister that the Amritsar Airport was well equipped with all the modern equipment i.e. CAT-IIILS system, which facilitates the flight operations in the visibility up to 350Meters. He said, the CAT-II ILS system will soon be upgraded to CAT-III B ILS system with the help of which flight operations would be conducted up to the visibility of 50 meters. At present, CAT-III B is only available at Delhi Airport, and after the installation of this system, Amritsar Airport will be at the same technical level as that of the Delhi Airport. Further, Amritsar Airport is capable to handle operations of aircraft up to type B-747. Simultaneously, 14 aircrafts can be parked at 14 parking bays in addition to one Cargo apron. Out of these parking bays, two parking bays are provided with the facility of aerobridge and two more aerobridges are going to be installed very soon. The integrated terminal Building at Amritsar has an annual capacity of 1.46 million passengers with the peak hour capacity of 1,200 passengers, he said.
He pointed out, Amritsar was thick NRI population belt and religious tourism spot and more than 40 per cent passengers who travel from Delhi to American and European sectors belong to Punjab. But, these passengers have to catch flights from Delhi Airport, for which they have to travel by different modes from Punjab to Delhi, which consumes 8-10 hours, which increase the risk to miss flights also. He said, surveys have been conducted in which frequent fliers from Punjab to other countries have discussed their difficulties about managing time and resources before catching flights from Delhi Airport. Moreover, due to no direct flights to Toronto and Birmingham, world class cargo facility of this Airport is also being underutilized. Capt Amarinder suggested that Amritsar being the religious capital for Punjab, Government of India should share the responsibility with Punjab Government to put efforts in progress of the Amritsar International Airport.