Mangalore: New Arrival Hall at Bajpe Airport Opened to Passengers

Raviprasad Kamila for The Hindu

The hall, covering an area of 14,000 sq ft, can handle 250 passengers at a time

MANGALORE, Jun 18: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) opened the new arrival hall at Bajpe (Mangalore) airport to passengers on Sunday.
The air-conditioned hall, covering an area of 14,000 sq ft, can handle 250 passengers at a time. It has been built in eight months at an estimated cost of Rs. 3.5 crore.
For some time, it will be used to handle passengers of domestic flights only, M.R. Vasudeva, director of the airport, told The Hindu.
The airport handles nine domestic flights a day including five to Mumbai and four to Bangalore.
The new arrival hall would handle approximately 800 to 900 domestic passengers a day, he said.
The arrival hall has two conveyor belts, toilets, drinking water facility, a pre-paid taxi counter, a flight information board and a hotel counter. It has a visitors’ gallery. Visitors have to pay a fee to enter the gallery. They would be allowed to the gallery after a security check, Mr. Vasudeva said.
The structural design of the hall was handled by National Institute of Technology – Karnataka, Surathkal. The planning, interior and exterior designs and the construction were done by the AAI.
Passengers of Jet Airways flight from Bangalore were the first to arrive through the new hall on Sunday at 9.25 a.m. They included Siddaramaiah, former Deputy Chief Minister; V.R. Sudarshan, MLC; Sugunendra Tirtha swamiji of Puttige Math, Udupi; P. Tamilvanan, chairman, New Mangalore Port Trust; and K.L. Gopalakrishna, Executive Director, Corporation Bank.
U.R. Sabhapathi, former Udupi MLA, and Jayaprakash Hegde, MLA of Brahmavar, were present.
Opened
A counter to sell products of Dakshina Kannada Milk Producers’ Union Ltd. (DKMUL) was opened on the premises of the airport on Sunday. Krishna J. Palemar, Surathkal MLA, inaugurated it.
K. Diwakar Shetty, president of DKMUL, was present.

Air India Express Dubai-Mangalore Flights to Resume on June 8

from Rajesh Sequeira in DubaiDaijiworld Media Network - UAE / Mangalore
Dubai, Jun 8: As a result of cyclonic conditions in Oman and south Iran, the flights to Muscat had been suspended from June 6.
A number of passengers of Air India Express flights had been stranded in Dubai and Mangalore. Since this flight is taking its route via Muscat, it was suspended until further notice.
Civil aviation sources said, as already reported by Daijiworld, that permission had been obtained for the flights to overfly Pakistan and Iran en route to Dubai and back.
Rajesh Sequeira after speaking to the officials in Dubai and Mumbai said these flight had been cancelled keeping the safety of the passengers in mind. Although it would mean more expenditure to the airline, the step has been taken for the convenience of the passengers, they said.
The backlog of passengers of flights would be cleared as early as possible, they assured.

Air India Express gets Clearance to Overfly Pak, Iran to reach Gulf

Mumbai, June. 7 (PTI): Low-cost carrier Air India Express has obtained special permission for its flights to the Gulf to fly over Pakistan and Iran as a tropical storm in Oman has damaged radars there, rendering it dangerous to fly on normal routes over Omani airspace.
"The radars there are not yet fully operational and Muscat airport is only now slowly getting back to normal. Under the present conditions, we cannot fly over Omani airspace and we will be flying over Pakistan and Iran to the Gulf," Air India Express' Chief Operating Officer P P Singh told PTI here today.
He said four flights were operated today to the Gulf from Kochi airport and five more would take off from Calicut by 9 pm.
The Mumbai-Bahrain-Doha and Mumbai-Pune-Dubai flights took off this evening, he said.
Two flights, one from Mangalore and the other from Amritsar, were cancelled while two Kochi-Trivandrum-Abu Dhabi flights operated without touching Trivandrum. Passengers in Trivandrum will be accommodated tomorrow. Air India Express' priority is to first resume normal flights before considering any additional flights in the coming days, he said.
According to Singh, Air India Express flights have been particularly affected since its planes have a short range unlike Air India's which are long range and can thus take long detours.
All Air India flights to the Gulf have also been delayed.
An Air India spokesperson said: "We have rescheduled our flights and there are delays on Gulf routes. Until we get an okay from the Omani authorities, the present situation will continue."
He, however, said normalcy should be restored within the next two days.
Omani authorities have partially restored their systems and Muscat airport has re-opened but it will take at least another 36 to 40 hours for normalcy to be restored.
Till then, the circuitous route over Pakistan and Iran will have to be taken by Indian carriers for flights to the Gulf.