Kolhapur Airport , also known as Chhatrapati Rajaram Maharaj Airport is a regional airport in

Kolhapur Kolhapur () is a city on the banks of the Panchganga River in the southern part of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarter of the Kolhapur district. In, around 2 C.E. Kolapur's name was 'Kuntal'. Kolhapur is kn ...

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It is situated at Ujlaiwadi, 9 km South-East from Kolhapur. It is operated by the

Airports Authority of India The Airports Authority of India, or AAI, is a public sector enterprise under the ownership of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India. It is responsible for creating, upgrading, maintaining, and managing civil aviation infrastruct ...

(AAI).

Future developments

Kolhapur airport is undergoing a major upgrade, making it capable of handling

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two un ...

and

Airbus A320 The Airbus A320 family is a series of Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, Maiden flight, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air F ...

aircraft. The upgrade involves a new terminal building, increasing runway length to 2,300 metres, a new combined Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower and fire and rescue building and expanding its apron and related equipment.

Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) is a project of the government of Maharashtra state in India and is the leading corporation of Maharashtra. It provides businesses with infrastructure such as land (open plot or built-up spa ...

(MIDC) has acquired 223 hectares of adjoining land from local farmers in five villages at the cost of ₹ 80 crore for this purpose.The new terminal is under construction since 2019, and is expected to be completed by 2023. As of April 2021, the runway has been lengthened from 1,370 to 1,930 metres to the east of the airport, and an additional 64 acres near to highway 277 is acquired to further extend to the full 2,300 metres. Installation of night landing facilities at the airport was completed on the original 1,370 m runway in late 2021. The AAI is preparing a plan to use the airport for overnight parking of aircraft to reduce congestion at the

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

and

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

airports. The airport has been facilitated with the aviation fuel facility, which means that the aircraft landing here will have the facility to refuel while on halt. The facility, according to experts, will help in carrying more passenger load, which eventually will help both the airlines as well as the passengers. The facility was provided by

Hindustan Petroleum Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) is an Indian oil and gas refining company headquartered in Mumbai. Since 2018, ONGC has owned a majority stake in the company. The company is ranked 367th on the ''Fortune Global 500'' list of t ...

, and will henceforth remain available on a permanent basis. Earlier, the limited availability of the fuel restricted the number of passengers on board an aircraft to some extent. However, that would not be the case any more. With the availability of aviation fuel, the number of passengers will increase. On airline operations,

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is operating from the airport to

Tirupati Tirupati () is a city in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of the Tirupati district. The city is home to the important Hindu shrine of Tirumala Venkateswara Temple and other historic temples and is refe ...

. At present, the airport hosts daily flights for Tirupati,

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

and

Bengaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

, carrying over 8,000 passengers since December 2021. While one low-budget domestic airline had started its operations earlier last year, more airlines are likely to join the services in the future. Alliance Air is also operating on

and

routes.

History

In January 1939, Air Services of India, a private airline based out of Juhu Aerodrome, (which was Mumbai's airport at that time) began air services to the princely state of

. The service was officially inaugurated by the Maharaja of Kolhapur, Chhatrapati Rajaram Maharaj, who had shown considerable interest in the project and offered a subsidy to the company, apart from arranging for the necessary aerodrome facilities in his capital. The present Kolhapur Airport began operations in the year 1987 and was leased by the

(MIDC) from

(AAI) on 16 April 1997. The lease expired in February 2012 and the MIDC requested the State government in May 2012 to be relieved of the responsibility of managing the airport. The Maharashtra Government then handed over the airport to the AAI in August 2013. The airport was closed for repairs by order of the DGCA on 16 June 2010, after the runway surface was found to be unsafe in the monsoons. Due to the closure, flights into Kolhapur were temporarily suspended. DGCA gave its approval for re-opening of the airport in April 2011 after MIDC repaired the 1,370 metre long and 50 metre wide runway. MIDC also added facilities like closed circuit television system, baggage scanner, door-frame and hand-held metal detectors and guide lights along the airstrip at a total cost of Rs 6 crore.

Kingfisher Airlines Kingfisher Airlines Limited was an airline group based in India. It was established in 2003 and started its commercial operations in 2005. Through its parent company United Breweries Group, it had a 50% stake in low-cost carrier Kingfisher Red. ...

resumed commercial flights on 10 June 2011. The service to Mumbai was suspended in November 2011 when the airline pulled out of several towns citing financial losses. After a closure of six years, scheduled commercial operations at the airport resumed in April 2018 with

Air Deccan Air Deccan is an Indian regional airline currently operating from Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It flies to a total of four destinations using Beech 1900D aircraft, as of November 2019. As of October 2021, the airline has temporarily suspended operatio ...

launching its first flight to Mumbai under the

UDAN ''Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik'' (Hindi for "Let the common citizens of the country fly"), known by its acronym ''UDAN'' (Hindi for "flight") is a regional airport development program of the Government of India and part of the Regional Connectivi ...

scheme. In March 2018, the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly passed a resolution recommending the Central government to rename the airport as ‘Chhatrapati Rajaram Maharaj Airport' after the member of the erstwhile royal family of Kolhapur. First Airport Director (Kamal Kumar Kataria) appointed on 13 December 2018 by

. For Kolhapur Airport development. The foundation stone for a new terminal building and ATC Tower was laid by Union Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu on 2 February 2019. The new terminal complex is being built at a cost of Rupees 275 Crore and will cover an area of 3900 square metres. It will have 10 Check-in counters, and a peak hour handling capacity of 300 passengers.

Statistics

Airlines and destinations

References

External links

Kolhapur City Airline Enquiry
{{Kolhapur district topics Airports in Maharashtra Transport in Kolhapur Buildings and structures in Kolhapur 1987 establishments in Maharashtra Airports established in 1987