New Islamabad airport to be completed by 2016

New Benazir Bhutto International Airport (NBBIA) – a modern, well-designed and state-of-the-art airport would be completed by 2016.

An airport official said Tuesday that there were several reasons for delay in completion of the mega project including cost of additional acquisition of land for the second runway, increase in the price of dollar, price escalation due to prolongation in execution tenure of the project and increase in costs of consultancy services.

To a question, he said that there was no proposal under consideration for development of any other new airport in Islamabad near Rawat. He said according to the original PC-I, the estimated cost of the project was Rs 37 billion but it was revised to Rs 94.8 million.

To a question, he said a number of irregularities had been identified in the new airport and a committee constituted in this regard had submitted its report.

The official said that the infrastructure, including roads and availability of water, would also be completed for the new airport. He said that by introduction of transparent policy and rules by the government, the CAA can turn new Islamabad airport into a vibrant and beneficial place for future airlines passengers.

He said that due to persistent problems of congestion and many other issues on the Chaklala Airport, the government was actively pursuing work on this project. He said that about 60 percent area of the main building of the airport, cargo sheds and runways were almost ready. He said that the lighting system was also under construction and the Chinese companies were working on this project. He said that Islamabad airport was of great significance because of its geographical location with nearly 626 flights landing and departing in a week.

Construction of the airport, spread over about 3,600 acres, started in April, 2007. It is located near Fateh Jang, 20 kilometres from Islamabad’s Zero Point.

In the designing phase, the CAA hired a French company Airport De Paris (APDI) with the local consultant ie Nespak for infrastructure design of all the facilities except terminal building for the designing of terminal building.

A Singapore-based company CPG was given the task of consultancy. The airport will have capacity to cater for Rs 9 million passengers per annum in the initial stage.

It will be the first airport of Pakistan which can land and park Airbus A-380, most wide bodied aeroplane in the world. It has two runways, the main runway is category F runway, which is the highest category for runways. It has the ability to carry the largest and heaviest aircraft. The other runway, which is declared as an emergency runway, is category E runway. CAA also designed a third runway on the other side of the building. When completed, this will cater for simultaneous operations for landing and takeoffs.

The terminal building of airport is being constructed by JV of FWO (Frontier Works Organization) and CSCEC (China State Construction and Engineering Company).

A source in National Highway Authority (NHA) informed that the NHA has been assigned the task to construct network of access road to the new airport. He said that NHA would construct the road network for connecting NBBIA to existing motorways and the project would be carried out through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis.

He said that the project envisages utilization of the current Motorway Link Road between G.T road Interchange and the Zero Point Interchange. The Link Road will be widened to accommodate additional traffic generated by new airport.