Mangaluru: Mangaluru International Airport (MgIA) on December 16 commissioned the Open Access Fuel Farm and aircraft fuelling facility at the airport. The facility comprises new greenfield fuel storage created by the airport, as well as the existing brownfield asset of an oil marketing company (OMC) at the airport, which MgIA took over.

The fuel farm facility is spread across 5262.57 sq.m adjacent to the old terminal building at Bajpe with a storage capacity of 970KL in six fuel storage tanks.

Bowsers of the airport fuel farm refuelled the first flight under Open Access system - an IndiGo flight 6e554 that arrived from Mumbai in the early hours of Saturday. Pankaj Agrawal, business head (Fuel Farm), Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL) and Srikanth Tata, head (operations), MgIA handed over a memento to Yateen Anant Pandit, captain of the flight and to the ground handling and engineering staff of the airline as a welcome gesture on this momentous occasion.

“Open access is a unique fuelling system at airports that provides a level playing field to oil marketing companies. It leads to overall optimization in jet fuel handling supply chain, removes entry barrier for a new oil marketer and thus widens the choice for the airline to select the OMC of their choice for refuelling. Overall open access system creates value for each stakeholder. Open access system is prevalent at all major airports in the country,” the airport spokesperson said.

“The airport is committed to providing quality fuel to the airlines operating from this facility and has put in place all arrangements to do so,” the spokesperson added. Earlier, Sasikumaran Nair P, airport terminal manager of the OMC handed over the symbolic key of the facility to Agrawal and Tata in presence of staff from various stakeholder agencies of Mangaluru International Airport that included representatives from airlines, airport security group of CISF and ground handling agencies.