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The newly built passenger terminal at Cox’s Bazar airport will begin domestic operations on Monday after a final test run scheduled for Sunday, a senior Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) official said.
“We will conduct the final test run tomorrow and the new terminal will be opened for domestic operations from Monday,” CAAB Member (Operations and Planning) Air Commodore Abu Sayeed Mehboob Khan told BSS on Saturday.
He said he and CAAB Member (Air Traffic Management) Md Noor-e-Alam would travel to Cox’s Bazar on Sunday to oversee the final test run and preparations for the terminal’s opening.
They will stay there through Monday to supervise the start of passenger operations at the new facility, he added.
The move marks a major step in the government’s plan to transform Cox’s Bazar airport into an international gateway.
CAAB Chairman Air Vice Marshal Md Mostafa Mahmood Siddiq earlier told BSS that domestic airlines operating at the airport had completed preparations to shift their passenger-handling activities to the new terminal.
Initially, golf carts will be used to transport passengers between aircraft and the terminal.
The new terminal will initially handle both arriving and departing domestic passengers. Once international operations begin, it will shift to a hybrid arrangement, Mehboob Khan said.
Under the hybrid system, arriving domestic passengers will use the existing terminal, while departing passengers will check in at the new terminal before moving to the old terminal to wait for boarding.
The government plans to formally inaugurate Cox’s Bazar as an international airport in October following major infrastructure upgrades, including construction of the new terminal and extension of the runway into the Bay of Bengal.
The international passenger terminal, covering around 17,956 square metres, was built under a project with an approved cost of about Tk362.63 crore.
The terminal has departure and arrival facilities, check-in counters, immigration facilities, baggage belts, a boarding bridge, lifts, escalators, security screening equipment and other modern passenger-handling infrastructure.
Following the expansion, the airport’s annual passenger-handling capacity is expected to rise from around 730,000 to 1.8 million.
CAAB has also extended the runway from 9,000 feet to 10,700 feet by reclaiming around 43 hectares of land from the Bay of Bengal, making it the longest runway in Bangladesh.
The extended runway is designed to accommodate fully loaded wide-body aircraft as part of preparations for international flights.
Cox’s Bazar is currently one of Bangladesh’s busiest domestic airports, handling around 28 to 30 passenger aircraft take-offs and landings a day.
Authorities expect direct international air connectivity with the country’s premier tourism destination to attract more foreign tourists and boost investment in hotels, resorts and other tourism-related businesses.