An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport.

Airports often have facilities to store and maintain aircraft, and a control tower. An airport
consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least
one operationally active surface such as a runway for a plane to take off or a helipad, and often
includes adjacent utility buildings such as control towers, hangars and terminals. Larger airports
may have airport aprons, taxiway bridges, air traffic control centers, passenger facilities such as
restaurants and lounges, and emergency services.

At all airports the use of a traffic pattern is possible. They may help to assure smooth traffic
flow between departing and arriving aircraft. There is no technical need within modern
commercial aviation for performing this pattern, provided there is no queue. And due to the so-
called SLOT-times, the overall traffic planning tend to assure landing queues are avoided.

Kolhapur Airport is an airport in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India. It is situated at Ujlaiwadi, 9 km

South-East from Kolhapur city. It is operated by the Airports Authority of India (AAI). The AAI
is expanding the airport at a cost of Rs 274 Crore.

Fig.1 Take off approach

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 Kolhapur. 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
Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) from Airports Authority of India
(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 June 16, 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 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
launching its first flight to Mumbai under the UDAN scheme.

In March 2018, the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly passed a resolution recommending the
Central government to rename the airport as ‘Chhatrapati Rajaram Maharaja Airport' after the
member of the erstwhile royal family of Kolhapur.

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.