The Airports Authority of India or AAI under the Ministry of Civil Aviation is responsible for creating, upgrading, maintaining and managing civil aviation infrastructure in India. It provides Air traffic management (ATM) services over Indian airspace and adjoining oceanic areas. It also manages a total of 125.
Airports, including 11 International Airports, 8 Customs Airports, 81 Domestic Airports and 25 Civil enclaves at Military Airfields. AAI also has ground installations at all airports and 25 other locations to ensure safety of aircraft operations. AAI covers all major air-routes over Indian landmass via 29 Radar installations at 11 locations along with 700VOR/DVOR installations co-located with Distance Measuring Equipment (DME). 52 runways are provided with Instrument landing system (ILS) installations with Night Landing Facilities at most of these airports and Automatic Message Switching System at 15 Airports.
AAI's implementation of Automatic Dependence Surveillance System (ADSS), using indigenous technology, at Kolkata and Chennai Air Traffic Control Centres, made India the first country to use this technology in the South East Asian region thus enabling Air Traffic Control over oceanic areas using satellite mode of communication. Performance Based Navigation (PBN) procedures have already been implemented at Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad Airports and are likely to be implemented at other Airports in a phased manner.
AAI has four training establishments viz. The Civil Aviation Training College (CATC) at Allahabad, National Institute of Aviation Management and Research (NIAMAR) at Delhi and Fire Training Centres (FTC) at Delhi & Kolkata. An Aerodrome Visual Simulator (AVS) has been provided at CATC and non-radar procedural ATC simulator equipment is being supplied to CATC Allahabad and Hyderabad Airport. AAI has a dedicated Flight Inspection Unit (FIU) with a fleet of three aircraft fitted with flight inspection system to inspect Instrument Landing Systems up to Cat-III, VORs, DMEs, NDBs, VGSI (PAPI, VASI) and RADAR (ASR/MSSR). In addition to in-house flight calibration of its navigational aids, AAI undertakes flight calibration of navigational aids for the Indian Air Force, Indian Navy, Indian Coast Guard and other private airfields in the country.
AAI has entered into Joint Ventures at Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Nagpur Airports to upgrade these airports.