As a part of its ongoing expansion project, GMR-led Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here has commissioned 26 new parking stands.

These have come up towards the east of the passenger terminal building. With the addition of these stands, the airport now has 83 parking stands from the earlier 57 (47 remote and 10 aerobridges) enhancing the aircraft handling capacity by over 45 per cent.

‘Enhanced capacity’

Spread over approximately 65,000 sq mt of the apron area, the parking stands took about 10 months to complete. The new stands can hold 22 scheduled Code C aircraft and 4 Code B aircraft catering to general aviation or business jets.

GBS Raju, Business Chairman, Airports, GMR Group, said: “The addition of these stands is in line with our overall strategy of maximising the utilisation of our assets to enhance passenger and air side capacity. This has a direct bearing on the entire aviation value chain, which benefits immensely from the ability to leverage existing infrastructure and optimise their overall operating costs.”

SGK Kishore, CEO, GMR Hyderabad Airports Ltd, said: “With phenomenal growth in passenger and cargo throughput, as well as aircraft movements, and the resulting fleet expansions there is a rising demand for aircraft parking stands by airlines. Our expansion plan has proactively accommodated all these conditions to ensure enhanced service quality and faster turnaround times.”

The projected passenger growth of over 20 per cent Y-o-Y led by increasing demand for air travel spurred the need to proactively start expansion at the Hyderabad airport. Currently, Hyderabad Airport handles more than 55,000 passengers on a daily basis with over 500 Air Traffic Movements in a day.

Hyderabad airport has registered a total passenger footfall of 20.90 million from January-December 2018, which is 21 per cent more than that in 2017.

It has also handled 1.75 lakh air traffic movements in 2018, up 22 per cent from the corresponding duration in the last year.

With the introduction of new parking stands, the best connected airport in the South is set to cater to the increasing demand by accommodating more aircraft and facilitating better connectivity.