special feature
AAI
Airports Authority of India
Serving the Nation with Pride
Airports Authority of India (AAI) was constituted by an Act of Parliament and came into being on 1st April 1995 by merging erstwhile National Airports Authority and International Airports Authority of India Secure Air Navigation Services In order to modernise Air Navigation infrastructure for seamless navigation across state and regional boundaries, Airports Authority of India has developed plans for transition to satellite based Communication, Navigation, Surveillance and Air Traffic Management. A number of co-operation agreements and memoranda of co-operation have been signed with US Federal Aviation Administration, US Trade & Development Agency, European Union, Air Services Australia and the French Government Co-operative Projects and Studies initiated to gain from their experience.
V P Agrawal, Chairman, AAI Through these activities more and more executives of AAI are being exposed to the latest technology, modern practices & procedures being adopted to improve the overall performance of
Airports and Air Navigation Services. Induction of latest stateof-the-art equipment, both as replacement and old equipments and also as new facilities to improve standards of safety of airports in the air is a continuous process. Adoptions of new and improved procedure go hand in hand with induction of new equipment. Some of the major initiatives in this direction are introduction of Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) in India air space to increase airspace capacity and reduce congestion in the air; implementation of GPS And Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) jointly with ISRO which when put
Airports Authority of India (AAI) manages a total of 125 Airports, which include 20 International Airports, 06 Customs Airports, 80 Domestic Airports and 19 Civil Enclaves at Defence Airfields. AAI also provides Air Traffic Management Services (ATMS) over entire Indian Air Space and adjoining oceanic areas with ground installations at all Airports and 25 other locations to ensure safety of Aircraft operations. The Airports at Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Calicut, Guwahati, Jaipur, Trivandrum, Kolkata & Chennai, are established as International Airports, and are open to operations even by Foreign International Airlines. Besides, the International flights, National Flag Carriers operate from Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli, Varanasi, and Gaya Airports. Tourist Charters now also touch Agra, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Lucknow, and Patna Airports etc. To provide airports of international standards in India, AAI has entered into a Joint Venture at Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Nagpur Airports.
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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / July 2013
to operation would be one of the four such systems in the world. In order to enhance security at our airports a number of steps have been taken by AAI. These include deployment of CISF for airport security, CCTV surveillance system at sensitive airports, latest and state-of-the-art X-ray baggage inspection systems, premier security & surveillance systems. Smart Cards for access control to vital installations at airports are also being considered to supplement the efforts of security personnel at sensitive airports. All major air-routes over Indian landmass are Radar covered (35 Radar installations at 11 locations) along with VOR/DVOR coverage (93 installations) co-located with Distance Measuring Equipment 66 runways are provided with ILS installations with Night Landing Facilities at most of these Airports and ATS message handling system Gateway at Mumbai.