Dhaka airport’s third terminal 60% complete: State minister

Almost 60% construction work of the third terminal at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport has been completed, and partial operations would start in October with a soft launching but full operation will take until the end of next year due to expansion plans. 

State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism Md Mahbub Ali told reporters Tuesday that the construction work is consistent with the target with 60% done, and 93% to be completed by October. However, the terminal's full-fledged services would be delayed to 2024-end from the targeted April 2024, he added during a visit to the project site at Kurmitola in the capital.

The third terminal would go into partial operations after the soft launching in October, said ministry Secretary Md Mokammel Hossain.

The terminal's full service would be delayed as new features would be added to it with Tk 700 crore saved from the project budget, said Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh Chairman Air Vice Marshal Mafidur Rahman.

"There were supposed to be 12 boarding bridges [in the earlier plan for the third terminal]. But, now there will be 26. As a result, the airport's passenger handling capacity would increase by 16 million rather than the earlier planned 10 million."

"Also, there will be a VVIP terminal on the west side of the existing runway," he said adding that the time taken to get Jica's approval for these additions also is a factor behind extending the deadline.

Once the third terminal is completed, every year, the airport can handle around 22 million passengers and five lakh tonnes of cargo.
Authorities also said that when the third terminal is completed, it will double the airport's annual passenger and cargo handling capacity.

The state minister also told reporters that due to infrastructural constraints of the present terminals at the airport, authorities cannot provide the expected services, but are working tirelessly to improve the service standards.

The authorities are keeping aircraft movement suspended for five hours every night to upgrade the present instrumental landing system from category-1 to category-2 with a view to dramatically improving the ability to land aircrafts in deep fog among other benefits.

The authorities are on alert to reduce the hassles passengers would face due to this upgrading.

Project sources have said that the third terminal is being constructed on 542,000 square meters of land and will have a floor space of 230,000 square meters, 177 check-in counters, 64 departure and 64 arrival immigration desks.

On 28 December 2019, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the construction work of the Tk21,300 crore project aimed at increasing the airport's passenger and cargo handling capacity.

Of the total cost, the government will provide Tk5,000 crore and the rest will be funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).