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| Edited By: Sindhu Bhattacharya |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 30, 2018, 03:11 AM IST
GMR group is keen to expand and modernise the airport at the holy city of Madina in Saudi Arabia.
“We have expressed our interest in developing the Madina airport and submitted a pre-qualification bid. For this project, we have tied up with our Turkish partner Limak,” GMR Airports chairman Kiran Kumar Grandhi told reporters. He, however, refused to divulge details such as the likely investment.
GMR already leads a consortium that operates the international airport at Delhi, has built a greenfield airport at Hyderabad and another at Istanbul, and recently bagged the contract to develop the Male International Airport at Maldives at a cost of $300 million.
The Male project, which would be completed by 2014, involves building of a new terminal, expansion of runway and facilities for seaplane operations.
The group is looking at more opportunities to take its expertise in airport infrastructure outside the country — it is eyeing new projects in the SAARC region, Western Africa and the Middle East.
Grandhi said the group is now in the process of consolidation. “We have built Hyderabad airport in 37 months, Delhi in 36 months and Istanbul in 17 — each ahead of schedule.”
On the anvil is building a new ATC building at IGI Airport in the next 24 months and beginning expansion of the cargo terminal simultaneously.
The company will inaugurate the new integrated Terminal-3 (T3) of the Delhi International Airport today. Grandhi said the connect time from the airport gate to the aircraft at T3 — which begins operations on July 14 — will “match the time taken in Singapore or Dubai, if not better”.
The first flight to arrive at T3 will be Air India’s AI-102 from New York.
