Kolkata airport takes off on Rs 5,000 crore expansion plan, will accommodate over 1 crore passengers

Kolkata: The city airport has started work on the Rs 5,000-crore Kolkata airport expansion project in earnest.
A new 1.1-crore passengers per annum capacity integrated terminal for domestic and international passengers will be constructed within the next six years. The work is expected to begin next August with the demolition of the old domestic terminal and the existing air traffic services (ATS) building.A new ATS facility has already been constructed but it is yet to be equipped to begin operations.

According to Kolkata airport director Pravat Ranjan Beuria, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) was committed to complete the expansion within the next six years so that Kolkata could serve as the hub for flights to east and southeast Asia.
“Passenger growth projections indicate that the capacity of the existing terminal will get saturated by 2030-31 despite the interim modular expansion of the current terminal that is underway to increase its capacity from 2.6 crore to 2.8 crore per year,” the airport director said.
The capacity would have been exhausted even earlier had the pandemic not caused a blip. While the airport catered to around 2.2 crore flyers in 2019-20, the passenger count in 2023-24 was only 1.9 crore despite a recovery post-Covid.
Beuria said the new U-shaped terminal will have three sections. A rectangular section that will come up where the parking lot of the old terminal was situated will house check-in counters, security check portals and baggage handling facilities. From either end, two arms will stretch out into the operational area and house boarding gates and aerobridges.
“Unlike the linear shape of the current integrated terminal that has all the boarding gates alighted in a straight line, the new terminal will have boarding gates that are on both sides of twin passenger concourses. Thus, even though the frontage of the terminal is not very long, it will be able to accommodate many more aircraft and flyers than the conventional linear terminal,” explained Beuria.
The new terminal will be constructed in two phases. In the first phase, the main terminal building will be built along with one concourse jutting out from the southern end. In the next phase, the other concourse will be built at the northern end of the terminal. “We have to develop it in phases to allow the delay in demolition of the ATS building as the services have to be continued till parallel operations are in place in the new ATC tower and technical blocks,” the official said.