Come June, city airport all set to get swanky upgrades

Come June, city airport all set to get swanky upgrades

Chennai:  01.01.2022

With a brand-new terminal and two multi-level car parking complexes, all set to open inJune, the year 2022 is going to be a crucial year for the development of Chennai airport. While the terminal construction is still underway, car parking complexes, which include a mall, a hotel, and a multiplex, area lmost complete and will be opened by June.

The expansion is being taken after 2013 when the domestic and international terminals were commissioned. Wo rks to rebuild the existing international arrivals, add more aircraft parking bays, a parallel taxiway, MRO, altogether will make the airport capable of handling 35million passengers. The deadline for these expansion works is set for 2024.

Airport director Sharad Kumar said that the new integrated terminal and the parking complexes will be completed and ready by June 2022. “The year is going to be crucial because the new facilities aregoing to open. These will help improve passenger experience and the airport's passenger handling capacity. ” The last section of the truss forthe roof of the terminal was installed recently. “The new terminal will have modern facilities including the infrastructure needed to implement bio-metric driven passenger entry and more countersforcheck-in and immigration,”he a dded.

The integrated terminal with facilities for DiGi Yatra service – a face recognitionbased digitalprocessingof passengers will be implemented after the ministry’s approval. The parking complexes, which can accommodate around 2000cars, were supposed to open by early 2021 but the deadline had to be moved to the end of the year, and has been postponed further due to the slowing work and rain.

The AAI has started discussions with airlines, immigration, customs, and other agencies to shift the international arrivals to the new building so that the old terminal can be pulled down to build a new one.

Sources said that capacity addition on the terminal side and to the airside, by adding aircraft bays and taxiways, were being planned and executed because there was a delay in deciding on the construction of a second city airport.