SITA continues to play a vital role in supporting the rapid growth of India’s air transport industry, providing key technology solutions to one of the country’s newest airports. The Multi-modal International Cargo Hub and Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN) has turned to SITA to provide passenger processing solutions for check-in and boarding, as well as baggage tracking.
Air passenger numbers in India have consistently seen double-digit growth over the past few years, significantly outperforming the global average. The country is on target to become the third-biggest aviation market by 2025. SITA has long supported the industry in India and MIHAN joins a vast footprint of airports and airlines across India using SITA technology.
As part of the new agreement, MIHAN is deploying SITA’s common-use technology, enabling airlines and their handling agents to access their IT applications in real-time on shared common-use equipment. SITA’s Common Use Terminal Equipment (CUTE) and Common Use Self Service (CUSS) allows any airline to use any agent desk, gate position or self-service kiosk for passenger check-in and bag drop.
The airport will also deploy SITA’s baggage tracking solution. Worldwide, bags get mishandled every day which causes disruption for passengers and costs the industry billions of dollars but by providing real-time information on baggage status, SITA BagManager will allow MIHAN to accurately track passengers’ bags and significantly reduce the likelihood of them being mishandled.
V.S Mulekar, Senior Airport Director, MIHAN Airport, said: “MIHAN is the single biggest publicly-funded development project in India. It is essential we have the right technologies in place to make sure the airport’s operations are highly efficient from day one and that they are future-proofed for our growth. SITA’s technology has proven successful in other airports in India and across the world and I have no doubt it will ably support MIHAN’s requirements.”
MIHAN is the biggest economic development project currently underway in India. The project aims to exploit the central location of Nagpur and convert the present airport into a major cargo hub with integrated road and rail connectivity. The airport is expected to accommodate up to 14 million passengers once completed in 2035.
Maneesh Jaikrishna, SITA Vice President Indian Subcontinent, Eastern & Southern Africa, said: “SITA’s solutions will allow the airport to cater to increasing traffic without having to invest in building additional infrastructure. At the same time, they will be able to provide best-in-class facilities for airlines and passengers alike. This is part of our commitment to making India not only one of the biggest aviation markets, but increasingly more efficient and passenger friendly.”
