At the Chennai airport the arrival hall might take up to three years to be opened
Posted on: 19/Feb/2018 9:33:50 AM
The latest news that has emerged is until a new integrated terminal is built at the Chennai airport, the arrival hall belonging to the international terminal may not be opened for another three years.
It is now clear that the arrival hall must be used simultaneously with the existing old building so that flow of passengers would be handled. As of now the building has not been used in the last five years and it has got only two baggage conveyors plus one ramp to the baggage area present at the basement.
One important point to be noted here is splitting of their staffs belonging to customs, immigration and airlines between the two arrival buildings is not agreed.
Only after the integration facility proposed gets completed the terminal could be utilized as this was confirmed by an official. It is confirmed that once when the building gets ready domestic based operations would be seen here and international arrivals would be shifted to the integrated terminal. The official also shared his thoughts about shifting of the flights depending up on the need for space.
It is now said that the integrated terminal would take as many as three years to get completed. To pull down the old domestic terminal and constructing an integrated terminal tenders has been awarded. It is said that the work would begin in another three months of time.
It is important to mention that AAI or Airport Authority of India has been trying its best to encourage airlines so that the building would be utilized.
There are some serious drawbacks in this aspect because the terminal does not have space to handle bags plus customs and immigration checking if as many as 1000 passengers arrive at the same time. The airlines have got fears about delays and congestion due to above mentioned aspects.
According to an official belonging to airlines, around 250 to 300 people travel on the international routes as airlines use wide-body aircrafts and he spoke about how at night time peak hours the flights land back to back.
As a result of this it would be tough to handle the passengers at the new arrival terminal. It is also brought out that airlines, immigration and customs have said the there are shortage of staffs plus confusion of posting people at the two buildings when AAI suggested that two buildings could be used at the same time.
