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Civil work for Air India maintenance base begins
| Joint venture between Air India and Boeing |
FLYING START: Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan on his way to kick off the civil work on the Aircraft Engineering Maintenance Base being set up by Air India at the Thiruvananthapuram international airport on Saturday.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan on Saturday set in motion the civil work for Air India’s (AI) Aircraft Engineering Maintenance Base in the vicinity of the upcoming international terminal of the Thiruvananthapuram international airport.
At a function organised at the project site near Chakka, Mr. Achuthanandan lit the lamp and switched on the excavation to commence work on the Rs.70-crore base, a joint venture of Air India and the U.S.-based aircraft manufacturer Boeing.
The base will come up on 6.07 hectares of land provided free by the State government to Air India. The base is the second one of the national carrier after Mumbai. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had laid the foundation stone in November 2006.
The base will have a hangar, a concrete apron and two annexe buildings and will have the latest state-of-the-art technology.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Achuthanandan said the aircraft engineering maintenance base would be a milestone in the development of the city and the premier airport of the State. It was one of the major projects that had come up in aviation sector in the State, he said.
The Chief Minister said the government would soon come up with a master plan for the development of the international airport in the capital. Land acquisition for the second phase of development of the airport would be expedited, he said.
The proposed airport at Kannur will be ready for flight operations in three years. The Chief Minister said the airlines should increase the flights to the State.
Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs M. Vijayakumar, who presided, said commencement of the project was a dream-come-true for the citizens of the capital. With this, the capital would emerge as the main centre in the country for aviation and space technology, he said.
Chairman and managing director of National Aviation Company of India Ltd. (NACIL) Vasudevan Thulasidas said instructions had been given to complete the base in 12 months.
The base will take care of the day-to-day line maintenance of Boeing 737-800 aircraft used by AIE, the no-frills airline of AI. Mr. Thulasidas said the airline will commence daily flights from the State capital via Kochi to Delhi in the morning from this month end. The flight will return from Delhi in the evening via Kochi.
To provide better connectivity to non-stop flights to New York and Europe, the airline will also commence daily flights from Thiruvananthapuram via Kochi to Mumbai in the evening. This will come into effect from the summer schedule, he added.
Executive director, Southern Region, AI, E.A. Varghese; Director, Engineering, K.M. Unni; Varkala Radhakrishnan, Thennala Balakrishna Pillai, MPs; V. Surendran Pillai, G. Karthikeyan, V.Sivankutty, MLAs; councillor Ratheendran; and station manager, AI, H.A Munaff spoke.
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