The Hindu Business Line : Hyderabad Begumpet airport to be base for flying academies

The airport, which has become busier than the local bus-stand thanks to the boom in the aviation industry in the last three-four years, would be taking care of the VIP traffic, defence operations and training facilities as per the concessional agreement.

Not just this, the State and Central Governments are planning to make the airport a good base for the training academies. Allowing operations of private charters too would be a potential option. “Forecasts say the charter business is likely to take off in the next few years. This will be a good opportunity,” Government sources told Business Line.

More academies

“Also, more and more academies would come up in the State as the new airport is likely to encourage several airlines to make Hyderabad their hub, triggering demand or skilled human resources. We are also telling them (the academies) to use the smaller airports like Vijayawada and Warangal,” the sources said.

The agreement between the developer of the new airport at Shamshabad (GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd) has a clause that mandates closure of Begumpet airport for civilian operations. It, however, allows VIP movement and defence operations.

However, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on transport strongly objected to the closure. “We fail to understand as to why such kind of concessional agreement was signed when the Ministry itself was of the opinion that the present terminals could be utilised at least for one more decade,” it had observed, asking the Government to reconsider the decision.

Hinder growth

Stating that the decision was taken following recommendations of the Task Force on Infrastructure, it said “manmade and natural limitations” could hinder the growth of the Begumpet airport in the future.

Ruling out a second thought on the issue, it said any rethinking at this stage would amount to default. “Besides, this would create uncertainty in the minds of prospective future investors on the credibility of the Government’s policy to involve private sector in the development of infrastructure through public private partnerships,” it felt.

Some low-cost operators too were not happy with the decision to move the entire operations to a far-off site as it might discourage people from using the airlines for making shorter distances like Vijayawada.

Now that the issue has been closed, the Governments are considering using it for other purposes, using the robust infrastructure developed at the airport over a period of time.

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