The Union Ministry of Civil Aviation has suggested that the State government acquire 45 acres of land additionally as a long-term measure to increase the length of the tabletop runway at Calicut International Airport from 2,700 m to 3,400 m.
The development comes close on the heels of the government moving apace with plans to acquire 18.5 acres of land for reconstructing of the Runway End Safety Area (RESA) at the airport. The current proposal to acquire 11 acres on the western side of the runway (Runway 10) and 7.5 acres on the eastern side (Runway 28) will enable the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to utilise the full length of the airport’s 2,860-m runway. At present, the runway length is 2,700m.
M.K. Raghavan, Kozhikode MP, who met Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia in Delhi has proposed that the length of the runway could be increased if the State government additionally acquired 45 acres of land to avoid recurring land acquisition proceedings for the future development of the Calicut airport.
Mr. Raghavan said the AAI already had in its possession 19.464 acres of land with a length of 721 m and width of 108 m on the eastern side at the airport. Thus the length of the runway could be increased from the proposed 2,860 m to 3,400 m by acquiring 45 acres of land, he said.
Sources said that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation would take a decision on the issue of giving its approval to resume the operation of wide-bodied aircraft at the Calicut airport only after the completion of RESA works.
The acquisition of 18.5 acres of land for this purpose was expected to be completed this fiscal. The AAI had initiated the process for executing the RESA expansion activities, they said.
Initially, the Calicut airport was certified for Aerodrome Reference Code 4D as per the International Civil Aviation Organisation. However, operations of wide- bodied were taking place from 2002. But the services of big aircraft were halted in May 2015 due to extensive damage to the runway surface at the airport as well as a recommendation by the court of inquiry that looked into the Air India Express accident at the Mangalore airport.
The operation of wide-bodied aircraft was resumed after the runway strengthening and re-carpeting work in 2017. It was suspended again after the Air India Express flight crash at the airport on August 7, 2020.
