Airport may not be closed at Begumpet

The city may be able to retain the Begumpet airport if the Centre accepts a Parliamentary committee's suggestion to allow multiple airports in metros. According to the committee, this would reduce congestion and cater to increasing air traffic.

The Centre has an agreement with GMR Group that is building the airport at Shamshabad that no other airport would be allowed within an aerial distance of 150 km. However, passengers would be happy to have two airports. So would airliners, who can save fuel by avoiding long waits for landing clearance.

All major cities including New York, London, Paris and Tokyo have two airports. The Central government's Airport Infrastructure Policy 1997 does not go against multiple airports.

New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore are considered metropolitan cities by the union civil aviation ministry. Air India director Jitender Bhargava termed it a good suggestion and said that one airport could be termed primary and the other secondary.

"It helps passengers and airliners," he added. "The primary airport can charge more for landing and the secondary less. This will be of help to low-cost flights."

Frequent flyers are keen on the Begumpet airport being functional even after the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad gets operational in the first half of 2008.