Srinagar Apr 1: Authorities at the Srinagar airport on Friday announced reduction in the application fees for night parking of helicopters at the airport by half in a bid to encourage tourist charter flights. Director Srinagar Airport, Kuldeep Singh confirmed that they have reduced the application fees for night parking of helicopters by 50 per cent.
He said the helicopter operators will have to pay Rs 50,000 besides taxes along with the application for night parking permission. “We are sure that this huge reduction will encourage the tourist charter flights in our beautiful valley, ” he said. It may be mentioned that the central government in November last year declared the Srinagar International Airport as ‘major airport’. “In exercise of the powers conferred by Sub-Section (i) of Section 2 of the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India Act, 2008 (No.27 of 2008), the Central Government hereby declares the airport at Srinagar as Major Airport,” said the gazettes notification issued by the Ministry of Civil Aviation. This comes just weeks after Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated the Srinagar-Sharjah international flight.
The Srinagar International Airport has recently witnessed a sharp increase in the number of flights as well as passenger footfall with sizable tourist influx being seen of late. The spurt in the number of passengers is being witnessed at a time when there has been a drop in Covid cases across several states. The annual footfall of passengers at Srinagar is expected to increase sharply from the current 3 million to 4.5 million passengers in the next few years, for which the Airport is all set for a terminal expansion, a project likely to begin sometime this year. The night flight operations at the Airport has also provided a boost to travel and has been welcomed by the officials as well as tourism players.