Jammu airport is once again ignored as there is yet no futuristic planning for airport to get upgraded. The recent announcement for upgrading Srinagar airport related to flight operations but no such details are coming to fore related to making such facility available to the airport of the winter capital of the erstwhile state.
As per reports, Srinagar Airport will have nearly 30 additional flight services this summer and it will take up the total number of flight services to around 60. The main purpose reportedly behind this is to increase the tourist footfall as at least 50 to 55 flights will operate in to and fro manner, making it to around 100 flight movements a day. Due to increase in tourist footfall there will be a rise in overall economy of the valley.
But for Jammu airport, there are only 46 flights operated and despite of several promises made for upgrading Jammu airport but all these plans have been hampered at one point or the other. During 2019, at Jammu airport expansion work was initiated but due to Covid-19, the work was stopped for a while.
Jammu Airport is one of the special airports of the country and caters to lakhs of pilgrims as well as vital Air force asset. Against the need of 8000 feet stretch, the runway built in asphalt is only 6,700 feet long. This deficit created problems for the flight take-off and landing when the pilot had to put in “extra efforts to control the aircraft”.
There is an urgent need of upgradation for Jammu airport and solve all the issues related to airport and identify the bottlenecks to develop Jammu airport.