While the central and state governments are confident about the first flight taking off from the Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) by March 31, 2025, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has started commissioning of Instrument Landing System (ILS) at the proposed airport. Conducting ILS testing is part of calibrating flight path to ensure operational readiness of the airport.
The exercise, which commenced on Tuesday, is likely to continue till Saturday during which the AAI will test various aspects of the ILS operations at the runway 08R/26L.
“We have started ILS commissioning at the proposed airport. Commissioning of ILS is always an uphill battle and is entirely different from what we do in routine calibration which requires few ingredients like diligence, perseverance, dedication, commitment and determination to achieve desired results. We flew almost five hours in two equal slots in a day on Wednesday. But unfortunately, we faced some hurdles during this process since Lonavala hills in Western Ghats were covered with low clouds and the incessant rains were a stumbling block for us in completing our profiles at Navi Mumbai. However, we will again make a second attempt on Thursday,” an AAI official said.
“ILS is a precision runway approach aid based on two radio beams which together provide pilots with both vertical and horizontal guidance during an approach to the land. While the localiser component of the system provides lateral guidance such as whether an arriving aircraft is in alignment with the central line of the runway to a pilot, the glider path component of the system gives vertical guidance like altitude,” the official said.
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Recently, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) awarded ‘NMI’ as location code to Navi Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd. (NMIAL), a subsidiary of Mumbai International Airport Ltd. It is one of the important milestones for the airport and a step towards asserting its global identity. IATA Codes are an integral part of the aviation and travel industry which help identify destinations and traffic documents of a commercial airline. In addition, this three-letter code also facilitates smooth running of hundreds of electronic applications which have been built around these coding systems for passenger and cargo traffic purposes.
In its initial phase the airport will have a capacity of 20 million passengers per annum and 0.5 million metric tonnes per year cargo capacity. While the first and the second phase of the mega airport will have one runway, one terminal building and a passenger capacity of 2 crore, the second runway, four terminals along with an increased passenger capacity of 9 crore will be the part of phases 3, 4 and 5.
