If you are Goa crazy and always wanted a Delhi T3 or Mumbai T1 style Airport to welcome you, the sight of the swanky new colourful Manohar International Airport at Mopa must have given you butterflies in your tummy. But ask a Goa regular, the dollar spending, long haul holidayers who feel elated at Dabolim with their aircraft descending wheels barely metres above the sea and you will notice the difference.

GOA IS SURF, SAND AND SEA something that greets you at Dabolim but you don’t get to see while landing at new Mopa.

And no Beloved Pradhan Sevakji, Goa wasn’t exactly the right place to announce that Indians weren’t flying before 2014. Goa has been getting 1000+ charter flights loaded with dollar-spending tourists from Europe every year. And they were all landing at Dabolim. It has been the benchmark of Tourism in India. (Now of course lost in clueless consultants & gold-digging politicians)

On the map of Goa, Mopa is more an airport for the unexplored and virgin beaches of Maharashtra and Northern Karnataka (both aspirants for annexing Goa had it not remained aloof with the Opinio Polls of 1967).

Sample this. From Goa’s capital Panaji to Dabolim Airport it takes 36 mins to cover a distance of 24 km but it takes an hour and 5 min to cover 33 km to Mopa Airport. Goa’s commercial hub of Margao in South Goa is 40 min & 26 km away from Dabolim while it is an hour and 42 min and 65 km away from Mopa.

So who’s gaining? Maharashtra is about 20 km away and Karnataka is likewise. An overambitious IndiGo Airlines announced over 100 flights from Mopa to 8 domestic destinations and Oman Air plans to shift its base from Dabolim to Mopa. The pompous precinct of North Goa is more hip and happening so it needs an Airport of its own. While all politicians are crying hoarse that both Airports will remain and someone said, Goa needs a third Airport too.

The fact remains that remittance earners in Gulf and budget backpackers from Europe will be coughing up more.