It’s curtains for Rajkot Airport as airlines make a move to Hirasar

Hirasar airport (IATA: HSR)  near Rajkot will start operations on Sunday, September 10, 2023. The airport was inaugurated by the Hon. Prime Minister on July 27, 2023. The new terminal building and the airside infrastructures are developed in a total land area of 2534 acres at a cost of ₹1405 Cr. 

Both Air India and IndiGo, the only two operators at Rajkot have opened reservations for flights to Hirasar effective Sept 10, 2023 and closed reservations for flights to Rajkot Airport. Interestingly, there won’t be any flights to Rajkot, either new or old on Sept. 9th. The last operations at Rajkot will be on Sept 8th, while operations at Hirasar will start from Sept 10th. For a market as big as ours and where we have successfully transferred operations at Bengaluru and Hyderabad over a decade ago, it is a shame that it takes a day of non-operations to do the transfer.

Air India was the first to open the bookings for Hirasar early this week, followed by IndiGo.

Current airport and Hirasar plans

Rajkot airport was once the mainstay for Jet Airways and one of the heavily impacted airports after the demise of the airline. IndiGo launched Rajkot operations in March 2021 and has steadily increased its presence at the airport. Rajkot airport has a 6,000 feet runway with no room for expansion as it is surrounded by civilisation on all sides. The apron area is congested with just one bay for A321 and one for ATR in the old apron, while the new apron has five bays. With a decision to suspend operations at Rajkot and shift to Hirasar, one wonders if the expenditure to expand bays was unwarranted. 

Hirasar airport is an hour away from the existing airport and starts with seven bays capable of handling A321 or equivalent aircraft and a runway which is nearly 10,000 feet long. The current terminal at Hirasar is an interim terminal which has been built to enable quick transfer of flights from Rajkot to Hirasar and support growth of the city. Another terminal is under construction and when ready, the existing one will be converted to a cargo terminal. 

Salient Features of the airport:

• New Terminal building sprawls across an area of 23,000 square metres.
• The building can serve up to 2800 passengers during peak hours.
• The terminal is equipped with 20 check-in counters and 5 conveyor belts.
• The runway is 3040 metres in length and 45 metres in width.
• The airport’s apron measures 334 metres by 152 metres.
• Apron can accommodate a fleet of Ten (10) Code-C type and Four (4) Code-B type aircraft simultaneously.
• 2 Link Taxi tracks, each measuring 428 metres by 23 metres.
• The airport has developed a parking area with a capacity to accommodate 300 cars and 75 two-wheelers.

Network Thoughts

Currently Rajkot is connected to Delhi and Mumbai by Air India, while IndiGo connects Rajkot to Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Mopa, Indore and Udaipur. 

The larger airport will help airlines carry full loads in all seasons unlike in the past where short runway led to re-calculations. In the recent past, grounding of an IndiGo aircraft had led to large scale schedule disruption and use of non-standard procedures for boarding and deplaning due to paucity of bays. WIth Hirasar, the operations will be seamless – though the passengers will have to spend on both time and money for the additional journey time.

Rajkot has long acted as a feeder to Jet Airways’s flights to Europe and North America and the traffic partially shifted to Air India post 2019. It may not warrant a non-stop to Europe just yet, but the new airport will help add more flights which are better suited and timed for connections.

It needs to be seen how the old airport is monetized, since it is prime land in the middle of the city.

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