DATELINE ISLAMABAD: Still waiting for our first greenfield airport

DESPITE recent renovation, the existing Islamabad International Airport is literally bursting at the seams - with chaos and confusion. Compounding the capacity problem at the capital’s airport are two traits common in public services in the country — indiscipline and inefficiency.

The airport can hardly handle more than one international flight at a time — from the check-in counter at the departure hall, immigration, conveyor belt system, customs, arrival hall to the car park. If mayhem describes the typical scene inside the arrival or departure halls, it is sheer bedlam outside, including the car park.

Service at the check-in counters in the departure hall is torturously slow, and that at the immigration counters in the arrival hall is painfully slow. And baggage claim is total confusion with people pushing and baggage falling off and jamming the conveyor belts. (There are four conveyor belts, but one conveyor belt at this airport is hardly sufficient for a full international flight).

Outside, especially outside the international arrival hall, it is a fish market filled with scores of waiting relatives and taxi drivers, practically spilling onto the road. The car park is choked with parked and moving cars, as well as human and baggage trolley traffic.

The experience at Islamabad Airport has been described as a total nightmare not much different from that at the chaotic bus station at Faizabad. There cannot be a more embarrassing airport for a capital city than the existing Islamabad International Airport.

The plan to build a new Islamabad Airport at Pind Ranjha near Tarnol-Fatehjang Road began some 20 years ago in the 1980s when the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) started the process of land acquisition for the project. However, it was not until July 2003 that a serious move was reportedly undertaken to go ahead with the project.

It took another 16 months for the federal Cabinet to finally approve the new airport construction project in November 2004, and then another 14 months before CAA eventually signed an agreement in January 2006 with an American consultant, in association with a local consulting firm, to undertake project management services.

In May 2006, CAA invited pre-qualification bids for the new Islamabad airport, open to all international construction companies which have undertaken similar kind of work in their own country, with the requirement of participation by domestic construction companies. It is reported that the contract for construction would be awarded by January 2007.

Earlier this month, it was announced (for the umpteenth time in the past three years!) that the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Islamabad Airport will take place ‘soon’ ‘next month’.

Even if the foundation stone laying ceremony does eventually take place next month, it would probably not be until at least 2010 when the new airport will be operational.

Not surprisingly, the result of this long delay in constructing the new airport has been that the poor infrastructure at the existing military air base-converted- civilian airport has failed to keep up with demand.

The new Islamabad Airport is being billed as the first greenfield airport in the country. Greenfield means a new airport which is built from scratch in a new location because the existing airport is unable to meet the projected requirements of traffic. (The word greenfield originates from software engineering, meaning a project which lacks any constraints imposed by prior work. Those projects which are modified or upgraded from existing facilities are called brownfield projects.)

The name Gandhara International Airport has apparently been proposed for the new airport, a name that will go down well with Buddhist tourists from the Far East, constituting one of the biggest group of foreign visitors to this area.

Just like the upcoming Centaurus seven-star hotel complex, the new $300 million Islamabad Airport is supposed to be another landmark structure, symbolic of the Pakistani capital in the 21st century, complete with a state-of-the-art passenger terminal building, etc., and all the necessary infrastructure and ancillary services like connecting road and rail network into the capital city.

We could perhaps learn a lesson or two from India’s greenfield airport projects. Part of India’s ambitious nationwide airports modernization programme includes the construction of a string of greenfield airports. The first was built in Kochi in Kerala state in 1999; two are under construction at Bangalore and Hyderabad; and at least seven more are in the pipeline.

There are two features that we might want to take a closer look at. One is the low cost terminal for the increasingly popular low budget airlines. These no-frills carriers do not need aerobridges or complicated baggage handling systems.

The second feature is the ‘airport village’ designed for people to meet and greet. Such an airport village with eating and shopping stalls will do well here since it is the usual custom for friends and relatives of the passengers to spend some two to three hours waiting and milling around in airports.

But until such time as our first greenfield airport can come up in Pind Ranjha (which will be a good three to four years if we look on the bright side), CAA will need to address the immediate exigencies of the situation at the existing Islamabad Airport.

While nothing much can probably be done about augmenting capacity in the existing airport, CAA can at least improve on discipline and efficiency within and outside the arrival and departure halls, and in the car parking area.

To achieve this, we need better administrative management at the airport as well as greater education of passengers, visitors and the taxi drivers.