AAI Team Inspects Chennai Airport Expansion, Wants Work Completed by March 2027
Once the expansion work is completed, the airport can handle 3.5 crore passengers per year since it will have four terminals
CHENNAI: A team from Airports Authority of India (AAI), headed by its chairman Vipin Kumar, visited Chennai airport Tuesday and instructed the officials to complete the second phase expansion work, going at an estimated cost of Rs. 1,207 crore, before March 2027, at a time when the Parandhur airport project has been dropped and the new site is yet to be selected.
Once the expansion work is completed, the airport can handle 3.5 crore passengers per year since it will have four terminals. The AAI team inspected the ongoing works, going on at a slow pace now. There will be eight entrances in the new terminal, 60 check-in counters, eight aerobridges, 10 X-ray scanners and nine remote boarding gates.
After the second phase of the new terminal comes into operation, international and domestic passengers can enter the airport through any gate, reducing the waiting time in the queue for checking the baggage.
The conveyor belts in the arrival section, which delivers the luggage of the passengers, are to be installed with modern facilities.
Ultramodern automatic scanners will be installed to detect the materials inside passengers’ luggage.
As the number of passengers using Chennai airport continues to grow, AAI had decided to expand the airport and sought approval from the Centre in 2017 for the expansion. The Central government provided the approval and allocated the required funds for the airport expansion project.
It was decided to take up the expansion works at a total cost of Rs. 2,467 crore on 2.36 lakh square metres in two phases. In the first phase, the works were carried out on 1.49 lakh square metres at an estimated cost of Rs. 1,260 crore. In the second phase, the work for an extent of 86,135 square metres is being carried out at an estimated cost of Rs. 1,207 crore. The building construction was expected to be completed by March 2026, but only 45 per cent of the work has been completed till now. It is said a few construction companies involved in the expansion work withdrew from the project saying they could not continue at the same tender cost since the prices of building materials had increased. New contractors were arranged for the completion of the work.