New Director of Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) Prasanna Pradhan wants to put the Bhubaneswar airport among the best. He tells Asish Mehta BPIA has achieved 80 per cent of the pre-Covid passenger/aircraft handling and gearing up for more.
What will be your focus areas as BPIA Director?
We will make efforts to achieve AAI’s organisational goals of providing world-class airport infrastructure and best-in-class facilities at BPIA. Being an avid supporter of the green airport concept and carbon neutral growth in civil aviation, I hope to bring BPIA on par with the best airports in the world by adopting finest international practices.
Bhubaneswar has been chosen as the first airport in the country to have indigenous, cost-effective and environment-friendly air traffic management systems in compliance with Centre’s Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India initiatives. In partnership with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), we will make all efforts to modernise the airport.
We are gearing up to make the airport ready ahead of FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup in Odisha next year. As BPIA is among the seven AAI airports chosen for Voice of Customer Recognition 2021 by Airports Council International (ACI), we will give top priority to our customers and we are committed to ensuring their voice is heard. We will attempt to make BPIA CAT-III compliant, following which aircraft will be able to land in low visibility.
What are the challenges? Has the airport started witnessing pre-Covid business?
We are yet to start international operations post the pandemic. On the domestic front, we have achieved 80 per cent of the pre-Covid passenger/aircraft handling. Though not audited, we have achieved some financial recovery and made marginal profits during 2021-2022.
What is the daily footfall? How many flights are currently operating on a daily basis?
The daily footfall of passengers (boarding and deboarding) is about 7,000 to 9,500. Daily aircraft movement (arrival/departure) is between 65 to 80.
Any plan to start flights to new destinations this year?
Not yet, no airline has shown interest in any new route. A newly launched Akasa Air conducted a pre-flight survey and it may start operation in the near future.
Re-carpeting of the runway was done in 2007 and work was postponed twice (2019 and 2020).
We are preparing to carry out the re-carpeting of the runway, and the project is expected to commence in December 2022.
Roof of the under-construction Link Building collapsed in January 2020. What is the progress?
Construction of the Link Building between two terminals will be completed by December and renovation work of Terminal 2 has also started.
Key projects like parallel taxi track, eight bays, technical block-cum-ATC tower, isolation bay, fire station and electrical and mechanical workshop are yet to take off. Any deadline?
Projects like a parallel taxi track, eight bays, a new fire station and an electrical and mechanical workshop are complete and we have started their final commissioning. Technical block-cum-new ATC Tower will be functional soon with indigenous, cost-effective and environment-friendly air traffic management systems. BEL has done a site survey and will install state-of-the-art equipment in August this year. This will help us increase the airport’s capacity, enhance safety by reducing the controller’s workload, improve air traffic flow and minimise flight delays.