NEW DELHI: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) will extend and upgrade the runway of Umroi airport by the end of this year, along with six other airports of the country, indicating that bigger planes will be operated from these airports.
The runway at the airport will be ‘extended and strengthened’ by December this year, an official statement said.
“As the traffic increases, the airline operators want to operate bigger aircraft from the airport. At that time, the runway must be upgraded to make it suitable for that purpose,” it added.
At present, the runway can handle only small ATR 42 aircrafts. Expansion of the runway and upgrading of other facilities will enable it to handle ATR 72 and AB 321 aircrafts, which are bigger in size.
The other runways to be upgraded are at Jammu (J&K), Kolhapur (Maharashtra), Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh), Kadapa (Andhra Pradesh), Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh) and Tuticorin (Tamil Nadu) airports by March 2022, the statement said.