LAHORE, Sept 10: The Civil Aviation Authority on Tuesday announced “commercial launch” of the New Terminal Complex, Allama Iqbal International Airport, to attract investors to set up their business outlets in and outside the building.

Speaking at a briefing on business potential of the new complex, CAA director-general Air Marshal Aliuddin said only the business community would make the new terminal a dynamic place in near future.

He said the new terminal, which would start test flights in the first week of November, would attract 6.5 million passengers annually as compared to 2.5 million passengers at the existing airport. Similarly, he said, the new terminal would also have a turnover of around 10 million visitors.

The new complex project was a difficult project due to severe financial constraints, he said. But the project director, finance director and the consortium of companies continued to work for timely completion of the project.

As the terminal is still looking semi-finished, he said, now it is up to the business community to see and decide where to invest. He said the contracts would be awarded at very reasonable rates through a complete merit and transparency oriented system. He said all relevant committees were in place and the advertisement process to offer spaces at the complex would be started in a couple of days.

As the CAA would award contracts and businessmen set up their outlets, Aliuddin said the CAA would start operating limited flights to check new terminal’s every individual system. He hoped that the full-fledge operations of flights would start by the end of this year.

Later, talking to reporters, Aliuddin said the CAA would take every possible measure to build the confidence of foreign airlines and convince them to start their operations at the new terminal, the second gateway to Pakistan. He said the new terminal would be made a most secured airport. He said the government had directed that there must be very little restrictions at Lahore and Karachi airports.

Aliuddin said there was no full-fledge cargo terminal in the new airport but later a company offered to build the cargo facility, which had been broken-up just two weeks ago. He said the cargo activity would continue to be held at the existing airport facility till the setting up of new facility at new terminal. “The respective airlines would handle their cargo activity by themselves,” he said.

He said the existing haj terminal would continue to work at the present location for the times to come. As the existing airport land belonged to the army and the air force, Aliuddin said the airport would be handed over to these forces along with all immovable infrastructure. “Of course we will move our movable items to the new facility,” he said.

After Sept 11, he said the airline industry world over faced crisis and Pakistan was no exception. He said the CAA reduced its costs aggressively and showed surplus budgets. He said the CAA would continue to retire its debts by paying Rs2.5 billion annually. “The authority would neither seek any loan nor help from the government to retire its debts,” he said.

He said strict checking phenomena at airports was being implemented everywhere around the world and so would be the case at the new terminal.