Hi All, for those of you who have been following the story on my blog about Mysore airport, here's the latest. I was in Mysore recently, just a few days back and found that the tarmac and runway is ready at the Mysore Airport. There have been some chartered flights that have already operated in and out of the Airport on unscheduled visits, having obtained prior special permission to land at Mysore. For those who live in Mysore or have been reading some sites on the net, they would already know this information. For those who don't have the latest, here is what's been going on.
The last item for development before the Airport can be officially opened is the terminal building. As it appears, the work is going on in full swing. Credible reports from the current DC of Mysore Mr. Manivannan suggests that the Airport will be open in time for Dasara 2009. That's around the last week of September this year. Some readers may laugh at this because several Dasara festivals in Mysore have come and gone with politicians of every hue and color making statements that the Airport would be ready by Dasara time. This time, it may be believed because the statement comes from the DC of Mysore, a person who I credit all positive things that are happening there. If there is an honest, upright and dynamic officer, then Manivannan is the man and he has been an asset to Mysore notwithstanding the political pressures that his office may experience and the threat of transfers of such good officers, again coming from politicians of every hue and color.
So after much waiting, decades of it in fact, maybe we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Naysayers are still at work saying that the Airport is inadequate, large Aircraft cannot operate from them and that additional land needs to be acquired, this is not the end of the story..blah..blah...blah.
It is left to the operator to decide whether there is enough traffic from Mysore for large Aircraft and if so, what sectors would make sense and so on. Airline business is not a charity, it is highly sensitive and break even/loss making at the best of times. To speak of the current situation where load factors on known, established routes have come down drastically and every one painting red on their Balance Sheets, one cannot expect anything more from the industry. The point is, at last we have an airport that can see commercial operations. Let's hope it is viable for operators to come in with ATR turboprops to begin with. Let's see what sectors will be offered and whether those sectors make enough sense in the long run for the operator to stay on this route. If the viability fails, it does not matter how big the Airport is or what it can handle in terms of Aircraft. If viability fails, we will have an airport either with sporadic service or none at all. Lets hope this becomes viable in the long term and it appears that way at the moment. I, for one, will await with some eagerness, to see the day we have air services into Mysore. Hopefully it is in September this year!
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14 comments:
Thatz gr8 news ... hope it does open in September n we can fly direct to Mysore ... well compiled details Captain .. thanks :)
For those of us who spent many afternoons in Mandakalli airstrip in the early 80's learning to fly out of a grass strip runway, there are many fond memories of the time we spent at the "Mysore Airport".
Those were the days when we spent the afternoons, sitting under the wing of the gliders, shielding ourselves from the afternoon sun, talking about aviation and practically nothing else. The airstrip where the grass grew high and swayed with the breeze, where snakes lurked and bugs hung around and the time we used to soar into the blue skies in a circuit pattern around the airfield, with lakes, ponds below and the magnificent Chamundi Hills alongside us in our circuit..I'll bet anyone who went for training will have these images forever etched in their mind.
Those Idyllic days are long gone and will be soon (hopefully very soon) replaced by the exciting sounds of a regular air service in Mysore. Yup, Swaram, I'm so looking forward to this.
Dear Capt
Thanks for the details. Were you able to take any photo's, if yes, plz share the same.
News we can use:
http://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/India/20090715/1295477.html
Thanks Sudhi, i did not take any pictures this time, was very briefly there. I'll see if I can do it on my trip on 3rd Aug (next month), these frequent trips back home due to my father's indisposition, fighting cancer.
Sorry Capt.
I believe you are going difficult phase due to your father's heath. Plz accept my best wishes for a speedy recovery of your father's health.
Thanks Sudhi, I appreciate your kind concern.
Good to know that the old Mysore Aerodrome is graduating to be an airport proper. Ages ago,Vayudoot used the aerodrome to fly passengers (25mins from HAL Blr,45 mins to home !!!).Otherwise,only for joyrides during Dasara.
Yosee, true, Vayudoot was flying into Mysore on the grass strip. They were flying Dornier 228 turboprops capable of carrying 18 passengers. I remember an engine fire incident on one of the flights when it landed at Mysore and we are at the same airfield training on gliders that time. Interesting dad once flew from Bangalore to Mysore on the Dornier 228 and asked for a window seat! The ticket agent at the airport gave him a funny look because Do228's have one seat per window anyway, therefore all 18 seats are window seats! Hehe...
:-) LOL ! Can imagine that look on the agent's face !...much later, an airline called Guj-air was doing short sectors ( Blr-Cbe) in the south in similar tiny, 14 seater carriers ( single row seats)i If one stood with outstretched arms, one could touch both walls of the craft ! And then, there was that ( tinier, i suppose) Cessna, belonging to The Hindu newspaper which landed at Mandakalli carrying newspaper bundles everyday. It had 4 seats for passengers, rest was all Cargo Hold.My father used to travel in that sometimes.
Wow Yosee. Good memories. The Hindu Aircraft operating into Mysore was really way back in time. That was a DC-3 fondly named as the Dakota. That was carrying the cargo and limited passenger seats. The DC-3's were actually bigger than the Dornier 228 or the B1900 operated by Guj Air. Remarkable Aircraft, a product of the Second World War, DC-3's revolutionized air transport, paving the way for the growth of aviation World wide. Thanks for all the info.
Good job captain, appreciate your efforts. I have been following your blog for a while now. I live in US and visit Mysore (my native) once a year. Hope this time around I can fly directly from Mumbai to Mysore. I guess the routes haven't been published yet. If you hear anything regarding the routes please do update us. Oh yeah and the pictures if any of your Aug 3rd visit. Thanks.
Thanks for your comment Anonymous. I could not take any pictures as the access roads were closed. The terminal and tower are looking good. Seems everything is ready. What's disappointing is that the Mysore-Nanjangud Road has become a miserable stretch of bad tarmac and very high density lorry traffic with unruly drivers at the controls. I went past the Airport a week ago and found it a hairy experience trying to dodge pot holes and traffic. The priority should be to make this treacherous single lane road into a safe motorable one.
I will update information on flights and schedules out of Mysore as soon as they are announced. At the moment none of the carriers have made any announcements about routes or timings. Also pending is the DGCA clearance. So, the Airport may be inaugurated on time but may not have operational approval. Lets hope that this is done soon. I'll blog updates as I have them. Thanks again for writing in. I hope you also like reading my other blog that has all my travel tales: http://mymysore72.blogspot.com/
For all who are waiting to see MYQ airport developemnets, you can visit http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=41940372. It has good latest photographs in its threads
Could not see any images in the link but the news links to TOI etc are already known to most of us. Yes, MYQ may be open "on time" after a delay of a few decades but maybe no airline connections!
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