Surat airport to start operations on October 25

Surat district collector Pankaj Joshi has said that air services would commence from the city from October 25.

Talking to media persons, Joshi said, "The Airports Authority of India (AAI) had declined permission to commence air services from Surat in July earlier this year, in view of the poor infrastructural facilities at the Surat airport. However, majority of the shortcomings at the airport have been taken care of since then."

"The work of fencing the entire airport has been completed. The road leading to the airport has been repaired. The terminal building, which was in a highly dilapidated state until a few months back, has also been repaired. Adequate security arrangements will also be in place in the coming days," Joshi said.

"We have been told by the AAI officials that the work for strengthening and widening the runway at Surat airport, is also in full swing. Most importantly, AAI officials are happy with the progress made at the airport. They seem confident that the airport can handle air traffic. Air Deccan has expressed readiness to start it's Mumbai-Surat-Bhavnagar flight," Joshi said.

"We believe there should be no problem in starting flights from Surat airport. We are very hopeful that Surat's dream of having air connectivity would be fulfilled on October 25," the collector added.

John Kuruvilla, chief revenue officer & head-commercial, Air Deccan, too sounded confident that air services would start from Surat in the near future, but remained noncommittal about the date.

"We have approached AAI for permission to start flights on the Mumbai-Surat-Bhavnagar route. We want to complete all the necessary formalities so that there are no last-minute problems such as we experienced in July," Kuruvilla told Business Standard.

"I cannot say that the flights will commence from October 25. But I can say that we are ready to start air services from Surat and we are only waiting for the green signal from AAI," he added.