Malaysia Air seeks airport facelift

Though Ahmedabad is rapidly gaining a prominent place in the international aviation map with many airlines starting and planning flights to various countries from here, all is not well with the city airport.

A delegation of Malaysia Airlines that is in Ahmedabad to evaluate the facilities with the intention of starting flights to Ahmedabad, feels that the infrastructure is grossly inadequate at the international airport.

After a second round of meetings with airport officials, Malaysia Airlines team is learnt to have said they will not be in a position to start services to Ahmedabad unless the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport gets a facelift.

"We have conducted an operational evaluation for starting our flights. On the operations side, it is feasible to start our operations, but the international terminal at Ahmedabad airport needs a facelift at the earliest. The international terminal lacks VIP lounges and there should be more check-in counters," Shamshul Amree, co-ordinator, operations evaluation team, Malaysia Airlines, said on Tuesday.

Amree said besides these facilities, there is also a need to put into place more recreational facilities at the airport.

The 12-member delegation of Malaysia Airlines is headed by Amree.

Besides inspecting the international airport, the team also held meetings with officials of the Airports Authority of India posted at the city airport.

"We had a meeting with the airport officials and they have assured us that the facilities at the international terminal will be upgraded before the scheduled commencement of our service from Ahmedabad," Amree said.

Malaysia Airlines is expected to start its services from Ahmedabad from the first week of October this year, but officials of the airline are still studying and evaluating whether the manpower and the ground handling equipment capacities at the Ahmedabad airport are adequate.

Another important issue of concern is the space availability for the Jumbo Jets at the runways.

The proposed Kuala Lumpur-Ahmedabad-Kuala Lumpur flight is expected to operate thrice a week.

Malaysia Airlines officials said two planes "" Airbus-200 and Boeing-777 "" with a passenger capacity of around 300 are expected to be commissioned for the operations.

Officials of Japan Air Lines are expected to arrive in Ahmedabad on May 12 to evaluate the security arrangements at the international airport. The officials are expected to study various aspects before commencement of direct flights of from Ahmedabad.

The facilities they are looking for include passenger amenities, fire services, communication facilities, air traffic control and navigational facilities.

Air India is now planning to introduce international flights to Los Angles and Dubai from June 11 and 13, respectively, after the success of its direct flight to London that began in March.

Singapore Airlines has also announced that it will begin direct services between Singapore and Gujarat from July 28.

The direct service to Gujarat, SQ462, will depart Singapore every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 2 am and will arrive in Ahmedabad at 4:45 am the same morning.

The return flight, SQ461, will depart at 6 am and arrive in Singapore at 2 pm.