A decision to expand Vellore airport to be the Chennai Metro suburban Airport
Posted on: 26/Apr/2017 3:47:01 PM
Presently, there are a lot of problems in managing the current heavy air traffic at Chennai Airport. Various solutions have been considered to overcome this issue.
One solution was to expand the Vellore airport and make it the suburban airport to Chennai Metro.
The central government is taking various initiatives to improve and achieve the sustained growth of the economy.
As a part of this, a project was taken up to expand 42 smaller airports in the country and to expand them to the next level depending on the strength of the population for an alternative mode of transport linking the entire country.
Among the 42 airports, 3 were from South - Hyderabad, Secunderabad, and Vellore. The expansion of the Hyderabad and Secunderabad airports are in progress at full swing. The Airport Regulation Authorities visited the Abdullapuram Vellore airport a few months ago for a thorough inspection.
The preparatory work for the expansion of the airport commenced immediately.
Meanwhile, as the air traffic at Chennai Meenambakkam Airport has become very heavy to handle and exploration was done to check whether an additional airport can be constructed either at Kalpakkam or at Sriperumpudhur. The Central Air Traffic Regulatory Authority decided that in the case of encountering any major blocks for construction of a new airport at these 2 places, the 3rd choice of Vellore Airport was taken up for expansion and to be used as the suburban airport of Chennai Metro.
The officials explained because of the heavy increase in the air traffic at the Chennai airport, it has become extremely difficult to handle the situation. This has compelled to have an additional suburban airport for Chennai. So, actions have been initiated to expand the Vellore airport and convert it as the new suburban airport of Chennai. The journey from Vellore to Chennai airports is approximately 1 hour.
