Mangaluru (TOI): The city's tryst for direct long haul flights rests largely with state government's ability to expedite acquisition of land required for extending the runway. Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) at Kenjar presently has a runway of which is 8,000 feet long. Airports Authority of India (AAI) which operates MIA wants to extend this by 11,600 feet, an addition of 3,600 feet in two phases - first phase by extending it to 10,000 feet and the remaining 1,600 thereafter.

Incidentally, AAI has set aside a budget of around Rs 6,000 crore to take up development works of airports owned by it across India for current fiscal. The proposed expansion of the runway to 10,000 feet is expected to cost around Rs 350 crore and acquisition of around 185 acres of land needed for it will cost another Rs 100 crore, avers J T Radhakrishna, airport director, MIA. "AAI can go ahead with the project once the required land is handed over to us," he told TOI.

Incidentally, the slow pace at which the runway extension project was progressing was discussed at length in the quarterly KDP review meeting that district in-charge minister B Ramanath Rai chaired in June. Ivan D'Souza, MLC who had expressed concern at the development had warned that failure to extend the runway would result in a scenario where the city lost out on traffic and cargo to Calicut, where an international airport is coming up at a fast pace.

D R Ashok, assistant commissioner, Mangaluru sub-division said the revenue department has sent a proposal to the state government to acquire required land at an estimated cost of Rs 186 crore. "We are awaiting administrative approval to proceed," he said. Once the runway is expanded by 10,000 feet, MIA will be in a position to handle 'Code E' flights, that is the Airbus 330 and Boeing 787 class of aircrafts, which offers higher comfort levels for travelling passengers.

Radhakrishna said that AAI is attempting the runway extension in two phases as the second phase is trickier which entails filling a deep valley to facilitate the expansion. Having an 11,000 feet plus runway will upgrade Mia's status to handle 'Code F' flights, that is, Airbus 380 and Boeing 777 class of aircrafts. In the second phase, width of the runway too, is planned for expansion from current width of 46 metres to 60 metres, Radhakrishna pointed.