Bhubaneswar: The Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) here will be partially closed for about 10 months starting from February 2020 as the proposed re-carpeting work at the airport has been rescheduled.
As instructed by the Airport Authority of India (AAI), the re-carpeting work is a standard procedure of re-tarring the runways to ensure that the aircraft have a smooth landing. The process is carried out every 10 years or depending on the traffic an airport receives. The last re-carpeting work at the BPIA was accomplished in 2007 and the new works were scheduled for the period – November 2019 to June 2020.
“The entire process will be divided into two phases and will start from February 2020. In the first phase, the re-carpeting work will be carried out during night and flight operation will remain partially suspended from 12 am to 6 am. While in the second phase, the work will be carried out during daytime and flight operations will be controlled during 10 am and 6 pm. It will to take around eight to 10 months for completion of the process,” said BPIA Director V V Rao.
Rao also mentioned that the flight timings will be rescheduled after holding discussions with various carriers and other stakeholders. While the November to March period has only four to six flights operating, the new flights proposed in 2020 will be rescheduled after the work is completed.
According to sources, the re-carpeting work for the 2742-mts wide runway will cost about Rs 28 crore. The work will include re-tarring, maintenance and overhauling of entire stretch of the runway, and further enhancement of the parallel taxi track. The daily re-tarred portion will be prepared for flight operations by the time the runway is handed back for normal operations.
According to the BPIA’s reports, over the last four years, the international and domestic flights have increased by 30 per cent and 33 per cent respectively. The report also projected an overall flight movement of 32,369 – a 39.7 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase.
