Calicut airport being run without director for over two months

Calicut International Airport at Karipur faces delays in expansion work due to the absence of a full-time director.

Calicut International Airport, the seventh busiest airport in India for international passenger traffic, has been without a full-time director since August 31. Airports Authority of India (AAI) sources suggest that there is no move to appoint a director immediately.

It was on August 31 that Seshadrivasam Suresh retired as director of Karipur airport. Since then, C.V. Raveendran, general manager for engineering, has been officiating. Mr. Raveendran said that he had no idea when a director would be posted at Karipur. The absence of a director is feared to affect the development work being chalked out at Karipur. The airport has not operated wide-body flights for several years due to the lack of the required 240-meter runway end safety area (RESA).

It has been over a year since the State government acquired 12.48 acres of land from 76 landholders in Pallikkal and Nediyiruppu villages and handed it over to the AAI for RESA expansion. Although the expansion work has been awarded, it required clearances from several agencies including the Environment department. The State Department of Mining and Geology has to give its sanction for the expansion project as it requires massive mining to build huge embankments at both ends of the runway at Karipur. “It requires a committed officer to push the project. The absence of a full-time director will affect the RESA expansion, on which the development of Karipur airport greatly depends,” said T.V. Ibrahim, MLA of Kondotty.

Several officials at the airport too shared the concern raised by the MLA. However, they said they could not go on record. “There were already attempts to clip the wings of Karipur from certain quarters. We immediately need a full-time director to take forward the expansion work, particularly that of RESA,” said a senior officer.

Expansion of the RESA at Karipur has been a crying need, especially after the tragic crash of Air India Express Flight 1344 on August 7, 2020. As many as 21 people, including the two pilots, were killed and 167 others wounded when the flight from Dubai overshot the runway touchdown point while landing and plunged into a depth of more than 30 metres after wading through the 90-metre-long RESA. If the airport had a longer RESA, the tragedy could have been averted, it was found after the crash.

The RESA is now proposed to be expanded to 240 metres. With both ends of the runway protruding like a cliff, the RESA extension will involve the construction of embankments with major landfills. It will require a huge quantity of soil to construct the embankments at 40-45 metres height. “It is not an easy task,” said Mr. Raveendran.