Mumbai: A wall, more than a kilometre long, will display ancient and modern art work, landscaped gardens, waterfalls — right in the heart of Mumbai’s suburbs. No, this is not a flight of fantasy; the Mumbai airport’s new terminal is going to have this, and much more.
The GVK Group-run Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) is upgrading the airport at an estimated cost of Rs 12,380 crore. Across 439,000 sq m, the four-level new terminal at Sahar which will start international operations from October, will handle 40 million passengers (compared to 34-million capacity of the Delhi airport’s T3). Its pre-launch trials are expected to begin in May.
Though the problems like airside congestion and lack of adequate night-parking bays that have dogged the growth of the Mumbai airport will not change overnight, the opening of the new terminal will enable the airport to handle more flights and offer much better passenger convenience in terms of check-in, security hold and baggage delivery — the areas for all of those will be substantially bigger than now.
16/03/13 Aneesh Phadnis/Business Standard
