International flight operations to shift to Chennai airport’s integrated terminal by first week of July

International flight operations to shift to Chennai airport’s integrated terminal by first week of July

From the first week of July, all international flights will begin operating from the new integrated terminal at the Chennai airport.

In early April, a part of this terminal, which sprawls an area of over 1,36,295 sq.m, was inaugurated and the trial run began in the last week of the same month. While several checking processes and trials continued, airlines started to gradually shift operations to the integrated terminal early this month.

Officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said of the 26 airlines operating at the airport, 10, including Air India, Jazeera Airways, IndiGo, Air Asia, Air Arabia, Alliance Air and Ethiopian Airlines, had moved their operations to the new terminal permanently. The remaining 16 would follow suit in the next two weeks.

“By the first week of July, we are hoping that all airlines shift to the terminal. As of now, narrow-body aircraft are functional at the terminal, and wide-body aircraft will also be operated shortly. So far, the functioning has gone smoothly, and we want this to continue. Hence, we are doing this as cautiously as possible,” an official said.

After the full-fledged operations commence at the airport’s integrated terminal, the old international terminal — where some of the arrival operations alone have been continuing till now — will be pulled down, and work to construct the remaining parts of the integrated terminal will begin subsequently. The work is likely to go on for more than a year.

Apart from the terminal construction work that is in progress at the airport, rapid exit taxiways are also being built to improve the air side capacity and handle more flights in an hour.