DTIS, Volume I - Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF)

exclusively used. Road transport is very limited outside Male’ and Hulhumale’ and is
only included in passing in this analysis.
V. Air Transport
Aviation transport is limited to just one gateway: MIA. It is the only international airport
in the Maldives. However, it is noted that the Gan Airport (Seena atoll) could be upgraded
at a projected cost of USD 17 million. This airport already has a new terminal
building designed to handle customs procedures. Customs officers are also in place.
MIA’s single 3200m runway (aligned north-south) is not provided with parallel taxiways,
so aircraft are obliged to pushback onto and taxi on the active runway. Its length and
width imposes restrictions for the take-off a fully laden Boeing 747-400 freighter, and
will certainly not be adequate for the future Airbus A380 series aircraft. Turning areas are
provided at either end of the runway. In peak periods, the consequence is that arriving
aircraft sometimes have to orbit, or departing aircraft delay their pushback, until a
preceding inbound or outbound flight has cleared the runway. Most traffic is executed in
the 6-hour period from 7:30am to about 1:30pm; this suggests a runway intensity of four
to five flights per hour during that period, which is close to the maximum that can be
expected from a single runway, given the operational constraints.
Extending the capacity to cater for wide-bodied aircraft is possible but expensive. It will
require the construction of a new runway in parallel to the existing one. A positive side
effect is that the current runway will serve as a taxiway and emergency substitute
runway. Construction of a new, longer runway will therefore not only open the airport to
additional, larger and heavier aircraft, but will simultaneously relieve some of the
operational pressure on the runway.
From an operational point of view, the biggest bottleneck at MIA is the size of the apron
area, which cannot simultaneously accommodate five wide-body aircrafts. It also does
not comply with ICAO requirements, which stipulate an unobstructed distance of 150m
between runway and apron. An apron extension project planned to be undertaken during
2006 will enable aircraft to parked “nose in,” thereby achieving the requisite clearance,
but will not otherwise increase apron capacity, the lack of which has already obliged
some airlines to modify their flight schedules.
Limitations to the MIA navigational and flight control equipment have operational
constraints such as the difficulty of integrating VFR seaplane and IFR wide-body traffic;
the need to push-back onto and taxi on the active runway; and the lack of radio coverage
of seaplane traffic in the outlying atolls. Part of these may be solved when MAC in the
near future installs a satellite-based MSSR radar system, with ADBS as a possible future
enhancement. Thus the controller’s console will be able to display a moving picture of
the protected airspace. The lack of radar coverage exacerbates operational constraints and
results in excessive intervals between aircraft movements.
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