There is more passenger traffic at Chennai airport
Posted on: 28/Nov/2018 10:18:36 AM
Many people travel by flight as they find travelling by flight is highly comfortable and time saving. The superb piece of news is Chennai airport is witnessing huge passenger traffic growth now. The statistics have revealed that from the month of April to the month of September in 2018 there has been 15% increase in the number of passengers when compared to the corresponding period in 2017. In the last year the growth rate was sluggish. In Bengaluru the growth rate for the same time period got doubled. Beginning from April to September in 2018, Chennai airport handled as many as 8326307 domestic passengers and 3004920 international passengers.
The growth rate of domestic passengers was faster than the growth rate of international passengers and this was confirmed by a senior official belonging to Airport Authority of India or AAI. It is brought out that when compared to the last year, in 2018 Chennai airport handled 17.5% more domestic passengers whereas the number of international passengers grew by just 9.6%. There has been increase in the number of flights to many small towns and this had contributed to more domestic passengers. To tap the increase in demand, flights are operated late at nights to metros and small cities. This could be another reason for the increase in the domestic passengers. In this year 2018 there are around 30 night flights to various domestic destinations and the numbers were not this high in the last year. There has been issue with the space crunch for parking bays near terminals and this has been responsible for sluggish international traffic at Chennai airport.
There were no new flights by the airlines to international destinations from Chennai airport. One popular airlines IndiGO launched flights from Bengaluru to Hong Kong. This has shown that the demand is good for east because of business ties and tourist movement. As per an official belonging to AAI it is clear that the airport was receiving queries from many foreign airlines but these airlines were not coming back with schedules. One important piece of information is British Airways which is celebrating 30 years in Chennai city has not announced additional flights to London. There has been an increase of 15.3% in the international passengers at Bengaluru airport in 2018.
The sources have pointed out that quick turnaround time was needed for the international flights and this could not be provided at the airport. It must be noted that the absence of rapid exit ways, shortage of parking bays and delays in handling of bags were responsible for the airport not able to provide quicker turnaround time for international flights. The Bengaluru airport was newly constructed one and there was space available for the infrastructure but Chennai airport could not be expanded any further as it was surrounded by residential areas. This was the opinion of AAI.
A source later revealed that AAI is fast tracking expansion within the existing space as the state government is not forthcoming with the land that is needed to construct a second airport. This has led to the impression among airlines that the construction works going on perennially at the airport. A taxiway is being straightened and rapid exit taxiway is being constructed and this has led to the changes in a way planes are handled. This was also confirmed by the source.
