Civil aviation secretary KN Srivastava said the work on the project after securing all the clearances can begin in sixteen months and will be complete twenty months thereafter. Srivastava met Maharashtra government officials to discuss the issue.
The civil aviation ministry has been pushing the Juhu airport expansion work as the proposed Navi Mumbai airport has been held up due to problems in land acquisition.
The ministry wants to shift all turbo prop movements and business jet operations to Juhu as this will free up 15 percent of capacity at Mumbai airport and enable it to handle larger planes.
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Srivastava said Mumbai airport is modernised to handle 40 million passengers and that capacity will be saturated in next 3-4 years. Shifting of smaller planes will enable the Mumbai airport to handle around 50 million passengers.
Sources said GVK-run Mumbai International Airport Limited is interested in the Juhu airport expansion project. An email query sent to GVK group remained unanswered.
However the Juhu airport expansion could face bottlenecks and even litigation. Juhu airport's main runway is 1143 metre long and in order to accomodate turbo prop planes it will have to be extended.
However, instead of extending the existing runway AAI is considering changing the alignment to make it parallel to Mumbai airport's existing main runway.However this can involve acquisition of properties on Juhu Tara road and construction of an underpass to facilitate vehicular movement.
The plan is to extend runway by another 750-800 metre into the sea. Runway will be constructed on stilts and will not impact the proposed Bandra-Versova sea link. However about 500 metres of runway length can not be used for landings because of presence of buildings in Vile Parle area.
Aviation experts believe that runway length should be sufficient enough for aircraft to take off will full load. "We must factor for conditions like wet runway or high temperature conditions when longer length is required for take off or to halt the plane.,'' a former ATR pilot said.
Along side runway development, construction of terminal and apron space the plan also includes rehousing of residents of 5,000 shanties in new buildings within the airport periphery.
The project will be undertaken under the slum redevelopment model in which developers get floor space index to construct houses for sale in open market. Srivastava said details related to slum development were yet to be worked out but denied it was a real estate development plan.