<The bottom line is that any progress in expanding Dabolim's capacity forcivilian traffic is bound to be at snail's pace because of the Navy'sarbitrary way of decision making in civilian matters.>
Today's HERALD had an update about the upgrade. In a story headlined "Planning commission approves new terminal building" it talks about a state-of-the-art 3000 passenger terminal compared to the present one of 12K sq.m which caters to 350 arrivals and departures simultaneously on the domestic side and 250 on the international side. Security staff number 250. The crux of the matter is in the following quote: "We are optimistic that once work on the terminal building begins, there are possibilities that the new parallel taxiway work could also take shape", according to the airport drector. So there is a linkage. In the circumstances it makes little sense to start one thing if something else is not tied down securely. As we discussed previously, besides the taxiway and the terminal there is also the matter of the apron space for aircraft parking bays about which no mention has been made recently. The latter, in turn, is tied to the runway crossings used by navy personnel. And this is related to the function of the airbase viz military flight training for which the morning hours are blocked to civilian traffic from 8:30 to 1:00 on five days of the week. The flight training is for Sea Harriers which are down from 25-30 in the 1980s to only 10 or 11 today. They are to be retired in a couple of years along with the aircraft carrier Viraat whose 50 year life is sought to be extended to at least 2012 because its replacement, a Russian carrier, may not be delivered till 2012 at the earliest. If the flight training hours could be reduced to 10:00 to 1:00, then civilian flights can increase by up to 50%. Then if the runway crossings can be reduced to 1 (if not eliminated), the apron space near the terminal can be enlarged. If the land for the new terminal can be handed over completely then work on the new terminal can start. Meanwhile the agreements for the new taxiway should be firmed up and work started. If everything clicks, then Dabolim should be able to cope with at least 4 times more traffic than at present. But there are a lot of big IFs. The trick is to get all the ducks lined up and not do things sequentially. For this to happen people have to stick to commitments and avoid re-opening things which have been settled at a previous point in time (as in the case of the taxiway).
