The Airport Authority of India (AAI) has set aside a staggering sum of Rs.1,000 crore for the expansion of Calicut international airport. The planned expansion will be taken up on 170 acres of land that is being acquired for the purpose. A report prepared by AAI (executive director - operations) J.P. Alex, AAI (architect) S. Biswas and Director General of Civil Aviation (joint director general) J.S Rawat said the construction of embankment for filling the valley on the runway, extension work and widening the existing runway strip involved 515 lakh cubic metres of earthwork. The AAI has projected the requirement of 24,000 cubic metres of sand per day continuously with minimum deployment of 2,400 truck loads at 100 trucks per hour. In addition to this, the AAI would need a dedicated access road from sand source to the construction site. The first priority is to initiate procedures to begin operations of Boeing 777-200 aircraft at the airport as soon as possible. That will reduce the runway to 2,700 m from the existing 2,850 m so as to increase the Runway End Safety Area (RESA), sources said.
