Shifting of cab pick-up point to multilevel car park irks air passengers

Passengers at Chennai airport unhappy with being sent to multilevel car park for cab pick-ups, facing inconvenience.

Many passengers at the airport here are unhappy that they are being sent to the multilevel car park to board their cabs.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) plans to move the cab pick-up point permanently to the multilevel car park soon. Currently, it has been sending batches of passengers to the parking lot for cab pick-ups on a trial basis. This has not gone down well with passengers, and many of them say it is particularly difficult to walk from the Terminal 4 (T4) of the domestic airport to the parking lot while carrying heavy luggage.

Satish Galley, a passenger, said he was disappointed that he and his wife had to take a tiring walk from T4 to the multilevel car park. “The worst part is, on both occasions when we went, the lift was not working. My wife, who was sick, struggled to push the baggage trolley all the way,” he added.

Vasanthi Kannan, a senior citizen and an air passenger who returned to the city recently, said she and her husband struggled to push the trolley up the ramp of the walkway and reach the multilevel car park to catch a cab. “When my niece arrived in the airport too, the elevator in the parking lot was not functional,” she added.

Vidyasagar Jagadeesan, a frequent flyer, said another inconvenience of going to the multilevel car park was that the walkway was not completely covered by a roof. “Chennai is already experiencing sporadic rain. Since some areas of the walkway is not roofed, passengers can get drenched. I experienced this on Friday night. Ideally, they should implement any system only after taking into consideration all issues and addressing them,” he added.

AAI officials said they were slowly moving passengers to take cabs from the multilevel car park. They said a majority of the people arriving at the airport get picked up by their personal vehicles, and these were allowed in front of the terminal. Only the cab pick-up point has been shifted to the multilevel car park, they add.

“We have created a huge facility, so it is only natural that we make use of it. The multilevel car park has been built for both parking and cab pick-ups. For now, some of the passengers are being sent to the parking area. Very soon, all passengers will have to take their cabs from there. This is not the case in just Chennai. If you look at other privately-managed airports in India, they are following the same rule. But we will ensure there is roofing over the entire walkway so passengers are able to reach to the pick-up point without any hassle,” an official said.