Surat airport terminal choked with fliers

SURAT: With increase in air connectivity and passenger traffic, the terminal building of Surat airport is bursting at the seams. The terminal remains so much congested that passengers do not have enough chairs to sit in the waiting area.
As the check-ins are done an hour ahead of the scheduled departure, passengers have to literally stand as the limited available seats are already occupied. The situation is worse when passengers of two separate flights are stacked together in the waiting area.

Now, passengers and airport activists have started posting pictures of terminal congestion on Facebook and Twitter, showing people standing with their luggage in order to draw attention of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to speed up expansion of terminal building.

It’s more than one-and-a-half-year since the proposal for terminal expansion was moved by then airport director Pramod Kumar Thakre. Till now, the AAI has reached at the stage of approving only the scope of work for the expansion of terminal building and the project is still under detailed estimation stage at central headquarters level.

Surat airport is operating with 22 scheduled flights and 10 non-scheduled flights with monthly passenger capacity of 65,000. The AAI has taken a long time for calculating detailed estimates of the terminal building.

Airport activist Rajesh Modi said, “I have written to the AAI a number of times to remove the giant VIP lounge in the middle of the terminal. It is taking up the space required at the departure and arrival area of the terminal.”
From just 30,000 passengers per month in April 2017, passenger traffic at Surat airport has seen a sharp increase at 65,000 passengers in March 2018. The average monthly flight movements have increased from 647 in April 2017 to almost 1,000 per month in March 2018.” At present, the terminal building is having peak hour passenger handling capacity of merely 250 passengers. 125 arrivals and 125 departures against the required capacity of 2,500 passengers per day.
As per rough estimate, the present capacity to handle passengers at the terminal building is 2 lakh per annum. Now, there are around 8 lakh passengers travelling to and from Surat airport per annum in 21 flights operated by SpiceJet and Air India, private operator Ventura Airconnect and non-schedule operator permit (NSOP).
‘We Work For A Working Airport At Surat’ (WWWAS) member Sanjay Jain said, “The situation at terminal building will turn from bad to worse after June when AirAsia commences Bengaluru flight service and adds other sectors as well. There is an urgent need to expand the terminal to facilitate the passengers.”
by via Surat News, Latest Surat News Headlines & Live Updates - Times of India