Bay carpeting work at Thoothukudi airport to commence after Deepavali

Recently, Air Carnival has decided to operate a new service between Chennai and Thoothukudi and following that the airport officials has announced that bay carpeting work would be carried out shortly as part of the expansion works. Along with the bay carpeting work, the runway maintenance and taxiway maintenance work, which are technically thickening of runway and taxiway would also be carried out. Owing to this, the flights that arrive at the bay are to be taken to the taxiway for embarkation. 

“To let the passengers leave and board the aircraft, the plane needed to be pushed back to taxiway. Hence SpiceJet has brought a pushback tractor from Chennai for the purpose. The tractor would bring the aircraft from bay to taxiway to embark passengers. After disembarking passengers the aircraft would once again be taken to the bay. This process would go on till the completion of the works,” said an airport official. Similarly, SpiceJet has brought a passenger truck from Madurai airport to carry the passengers during the bay carpeting work.

Though the work would technically start after Deepavali, now the aircraft is being parked at taxiway which is 130 meters from the bay and the disembarkation works has been carried out at the taxiway to put to use the push-back tractor and passenger truck on a trial basis for a week. Once the work commences the two facility will be fully operational, the officials said. 

With the district administration and the Airport Authority of India acquiring 586 acres of land for expansion of the airport, a slew of development measures has been initiated at the regional hub. Steps are being taken to introduce night landing facility and upgrade the domestic airport in Thoothukudi to an international one.