Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport
History
By 1946, when the RAF began the process of handing over the airfield to the Director General of Civil Aviation for Civil operations, two old abandoned hangars of the Royal Air Force had been converted into a terminal for passenger traffic. One hangar was used as a domestic terminal and the other for international traffic. It had counters for customs and immigration checks on either side and a lounge in the centre. Air India handled its passengers in its own terminal adjoining the two hangars. In its first year, it handled six civilian services a day.
History
Traffic at the airport increased after Karachi was partitioned to Pakistan and as many as 40 daily domestic and foreign services were operated by 1949, prompting the Indian Government to develop the airport, equipping the airport with a night landing system comprising a Radio range and a modernised flare path lighting system. Construction of a new passenger terminal and apron began in 1950 and was commissioned in 1958. Named after the neighbourhood in which it stood and initially under the aegis of the Public Works Department, the new airport was subsequently run by the Ministry of Civil Aviation).
History
With the dawning of the jumbo jet era in the 1970s, Santacruz, despite several extensions, began suffering from insufficient operational capacity. The Santacruz terminal was designed to accommodate 600 passengers at any given time, but by the late 1970s, it was handling 1,200. In 1979–80, 5 million domestic and international passengers flew into and out of Santa Cruz compared with 3 million at Delhi's Palam Airport. The airlines were constantly expanding their services, but there was no corresponding increase in space at the terminal, making it the most congested airport in the country. In one of its issues, Time) magazine, referring to the chaos, called the terminal building a "black hole". A major fire gutted the International section of the terminal building on 21 September 1979, killing three passengers and shutting down the airport. A temporary departure extension or "Gulf Terminal" was made functional in October of that year until the terminal was repaired.
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