India to get first runway-on-sea bridge

So far, India has no runway-on-sea bridge in the airports. If everything goes as planned, India is going to get its first runway on a ‘sea bridge’ shortly.

Agatti Airport is the lucky airport to have this facility in the near future.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has been given a nod to do this while extending the Airport.

A report in this regard states that the task will be carried out in the following way; an RCC platform will be built on the beach so that the shallow area would allow bigger ATRs to operate to the island.

In the past, the AAI had planned to link the two adjacent islands to extend the runway.

However, due to some environmental issues that may likely to occur in the future, the plan has changed a little bit. This matter was revealed by a senior official of AAI.

He also stated that the entire project, which includes erection of pillars into the beach and shallow sea area and the construction of RCC platform, would cost approximately ₹1,500 crores.

After the completion of the bridge, the runway will be long enough to operate ATR-72. Currently, the runway is small and only smaller turboprops are operated here.

Furthermore, the construction of runway on a ‘sea bridge’ will also help in reducing the airfares in this airport.

At present, the airfare to and from Agatti is on the higher side.

This is due to the running of ATR-72 aircraft with load penalty as it carries only maximum of 50 passengers in addition to 15 kg of luggage.

Agatti would be India’s first runway-on-sea bridge after the completion according to the proposal.

Earlier the officials of Juhu airport in Mumbai and Kullu also had planned to have the runway-on-sea bridge, but later found that it was not suitable to build.

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