Aerospace Diary

Neelam Mathews/Ben Vogel Feb 12, 2016 The biggest airport in  Pakistan  is being built by the  China  Communications Construction Company at Gwadar in Baluchistan as part of the USD46 billion  China - Pakistan  Economic Corridor linking western  China  to the Arabian Sea. Construction of New Gwadar International Airport is set to begin imminently. The USD250 million project is expected to last 30 months on a 4,000-acre site that sits 25 km northeast of the existing airport. The airport is one element of a wider Chinese-backed strategy for Gwadar, including development of the deepwater Gwadar Port and a road-building programme. Chinese Overseas Ports Holding Company Ltd took over the port in October 2015 after signing a 40-year lease for more than 2,000 acres of land. While New Gwadar International International Airport is primarily a Chinese project, the  Pakistan  Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) is upgrading airfield infr...

Neelam Mathews July 20, 2013  The government can cry itself hoarse over how it wants to develop its regional airport policy and even make announcements on how well the projects are doing, but it is clear that things are far from what they seem. Reality bites. Finally somebody had the gall to take legal action against an ineffective, inefficient, staid system. Pushed to take legal recourse due to lack of response from JV partner and sister companies, promoters of Regional Airport-Holdings International Limited (RAHI), a joint-venture between Rahi Aviation Holdings Pvt. Ltd. (RAH) and IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd announced that a series of legal actions had been initiated against IL&FS, ITNL, IL&FS Engineering (IECCL, earlier known as Maytas) and others, “in the wake of the Gulbarga and Shimoga Airport Projects languishing for want of appropriate responses from IL&FS.” RAHI came in with dreams of building 99 airports and I can attest to the passion ...

Neelam Mathews March 5, 2013 Honeywell and Airports Authority of India will sign a contract on March 6 – under the US-India Aviation Cooperation Program (ACP) – for a Ground Based Augmentation System (GBAS) system at Chennai International Airport, Aerospace Diary learns. USTDA, had in 2011, concluded an agreement for $407,325 to support AAI’s efforts to install and commission a pilot at Chennai. AAI will pay approximately Rs 5 crores for the equipment, which an official says is a “discounted price.” A maintenance contract has yet to be signed. Honeywell’s SmartPath Precision Landing System is a CAT I certified GBAS solution for precision approach and landings, enabling aircraft to fly either complex or straight-in approaches. Easy to install, it is expected to have major cost savings compared to Instrument Landing Systems (ILS). It is also more flexible than ILS – one GBAS can broadcast 26 unique approaches covering all runways at an airport. The ILS covers only one end of o...