New taxiway for faster take-offs

Kolkata: Amitava Basu was booked on Jet Airways morning flight to Mumbai on December 2008. Bad weather forced authorities to suspend operation at the airport for three hours that morning. Finally, Basu managed to board his flight and the aircraft door closed 2 hours behind schedule. But congestion at the runway led to a further delay of over 30 minutes.
Basu's travails are set to end with Airports Authority of India planning to inaugurate a new taxiway that will reduce runway congestion and hasten takeoff by 20-45 minutes.
The new taxiway, christened kilo-taxiway, will connect the end of the secondary runway to the primary runway just ahead of takeoff run at the Madhyamgram end. "We will commission the new taxiway in two days. It will save nearly Rs 3 crore per month in operational and fuel cost," said airport director R Srinivasan.
Currently, the airport has four taxiways A, B, C and D . To take off from the Madhyamgram side (19L) of the 11,900 feet primary runway, an aircraft has to taxi from the parking bay through taxiway A. The take off distance from taxiway A to the Rajarhat end of the primary runway is 7,100 feet which is enough only for ATRs, other small aircraft and narrow body planes that weigh less. Wide body and fully-loaded narrow body aircraft have to backtrack and taxi another 3,000 feet till the Madhyamgram end of the runway, do a U-turn and then start the takeoff run.
The new kilo taxiway is so located that it will allow aircraft a 10,000-ft free take-off run without having to back-track.
31/12/09 Arpit Basu/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Dec 2009