MULTAN: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will inaugurate the the upgraded international Multan airport on Monday (tomorrow).

This was stated by Project Director retired Air Vice Martial Atique Rafique here on Saturday while talking to the media.

He said the project was launched by former prime minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani “while the credit to complete it goes to the present government.”

“The foundation stone of the Rs9 billion project was laid by Mr Gilani in 2008; however later the project cost was reduced by 10 per cent while the master plan of the project was approved by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in 2009,” he said.

Rafique said the project had been completed in two phases.

In the first phase, air-side facilities, including AC tower, firefighter, runway, taxiway tracks and apron were upgraded at a cost of Rs2.09 billion.

He said during the last three years more than 24,000 Haj pilgrims were facilitated from the airport.

“Two national and as many international flights can be operational at the airport having a runway of 10,500 feet length and 150-foot width (25 feet shoulders on each side).”

He said the runway had capacity to accommodate Boeing 747 and 777 while the apron was designed to cater two wide-bodied and as many narrow-bodied aircrafts with an area of 36,356 square metres (sqm).

He said equipment for the airport had been imported while the passengers would get facilities of international standard. “The airport has been designed on the pattern of Lahore Airport.”

He said two new lounges had been constructed at the airport out of which one would be used by domestic passengers and the other by international passengers.

He said in order to facilitate passengers two walkthrough gates had been installed besides six immigration counters.

He said a cargo complex had also been established with a capacity of 10,000 metric tonnes per year while it would further increase by 30,00 metric tonnes every year.

He said annually about one million passengers would be handled through the airport against the previous 100,000 passengers.

He said the airfield lighting system was equipped with CAT-I ALF system and modern ILS system.

He said four bridges had been constructed for boarding of passengers besides designing a cars parking lot for 400 vehicles.

Published in Dawn March 8th , 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play