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<p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Mumbai airport, the gateway to India&rsquo;s financial capital, will open a new international terminal in its first major upgrade in three decades as the nation aims to ease infrastructure constraints that hurt growth.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the facility on Friday, operator GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd. said in an email. Designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Llp, the architects of Dubai&rsquo;s Burj Khalifa and Chicago&rsquo;s Willis Tower, the terminal will boost the airport&rsquo;s passenger handling capacity by about one-third to 40 million a year.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:rgb(105, 105, 105); font-family:arial; font-size:11px; line-height:1.6em">&ldquo;Mumbai has appalling infrastructure,&rdquo; said Kapil Kaul, chief executive officer of CAPA Centre for Aviation&rsquo;s India unit. &ldquo;I hope the new terminal inspires the political class to fast track all the key projects.&rdquo;</span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">GVK Power and its partners took over running the Mumbai airport in 2006 as part of government plans to modernize India&rsquo;s transportation networks. The company had to demolish about 100 buildings including a police station for the construction of the new terminal that cost about INR 5,500 crore.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">A 3 Km elevated road will connect the facility with one of Mumbai&rsquo;s two main highways. Domestic operations will also be integrated with the terminal next year.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Some challenges for the airport still remain. Almost a sixth of Mumbai airport&rsquo;s 802 hectares (1,982 acres) of land is occupied by slums, hindering expansion of runways. The airport is working on plan to relocate squatters from 65,000 shanties as part of an upgrade that started in 2006, the operator said in a 2012 report.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial"><strong>Intersecting runway</strong></span></span></span><br /> <span style="color:rgb(105, 105, 105); font-family:arial; font-size:11px; line-height:1.6em">Even after the third and final phase of work to develop the airport is completed in 2020, the facility will struggle to handle more flights as it has only an intersecting runway and one taxiway, according to a report by the nation&rsquo;s airport tariff regulator.</span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">India&rsquo;s local airline passengers may reach 107.2 million by 2016, making it the world&rsquo;s fourth-largest domestic market, the International Air Transport Association predicts, as entry of budget carriers such as IndiGo prompt more people to fly. The nation&rsquo;s operators may need 1,450 new planes in the next 20 years, according to Boeing Co.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">Airports in other Indian cities have also been upgraded. In 2010, New Delhi opened its new terminal&nbsp;built in 37 months that helped more than double the airfield capacity to 60 million passengers a year. In comparison, Singapore&rsquo;s Changi airport can handle 70 million passengers. Bangalore and Hyderabad in south India opened new airports in 2008.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial"><strong>Second airport</strong></span></span></span><br /> <span style="color:rgb(105, 105, 105); font-family:arial; font-size:11px; line-height:1.6em">The number of airline travelers passing through Mumbai may increase to 119 million by 2031, according to the City and Industrial Development Corp. of Maharashtra, the state owned agency that&rsquo;s overseeing work on a second airport for the city. The project, proposed in 1997, has made little progress amid land acquisition delays.</span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:#696969"><span style="font-size:11px"><span style="font-family:arial">On 8 January, hundreds of workers were washing the granite floor, glass walls and white pillars at the new Mumbai terminal. Audio systems and baggage carousels were being tested.</span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:rgb(105, 105, 105); font-family:arial; font-size:11px; line-height:1.6em">Source-On Request</span></p>