SECONDARY RUNWAY IN TAKEOFF MODE

SECONDARY RUNWAY IN TAKEOFF MODE
After Its Expansion By 1,400 Metres, Chennai Will See An Increased Traffic Of Bigger Planes Like 747s And A-300s
V Ayyappan TNN

Chennai: As the fate of the Chennai airport expansion plan — construction of a parallel runway, taxi way and a terminal — has run into land acquisition problems, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has decided to speed up the extension of the 2,085-m secondary runway by 1,400 metres as a temporary measure.

Currently, the secondary runway is only used by small aircraft including 70-seater ATRs which fly on shorter routes such as Chennai-Madurai. Extending this runway will allow the airport to use it for landings and take-offs for wide-bodied aircraft such as 747s and A-300s as well. Air Traffic controllers are currently being trained to handle flights on the existing runway and the secondary one simultaneously, said a senior official. This will help the airport to handle additional traffic.

The decision to extend the secondary runway has been taken in light of the fact that the state gov-ernment has expressed difficulty in acquiring 1,069 acres of land required west of Adyar river for building a new parallel runway. The government has so far acquired just 300 acres of the identified land because costs of acquisition have become prohibitive.

This has come as a blow to the AAI which was gearing up to execute the expansion plan after Ma-dras High Court cleared the project by dismissing objections raised by residents and builders in the area. The airport which handles 7.5 million passengers every year, is now left with just one option to augment aircraft handling capacity - extend the secondary runway and install an Instrument Landing System (ILS) to make it capable of h o s t i n g landings. This will then help the airport to han-dle an additional 23 flights per hour as against the current 27 per hour. Struggling to cope with the rise in traffic — close to 400 operations everyday — it was only recently that the AAI opened the secondary runway at Chennai for takeoffs by small aircraft.

The cross runway operations thereby helped the airport to transfer take-offs of smaller aircraft like ATRs used by low-cost airlines from the 3,658-metre primary runway to the smaller secondary runway, said airport director Dinesh Kumar.

Speeding up the extension of the secondary runway will be easier than pushing for a parallel run-way because of two reasons: only 140 acres of land is required for it and the ministry of civil avia-tion has already applied for clearance for the project from the Public Investment Board and the ministry of environment and forests.

The only likely impediment will be faced by the technical wing because the runway has to be ex-tended over the river - a spot prone to flooding during rains. To coincide with the runway expansion, AAI is also planning to build a massive 70,000 square me-ter domestic passenger terminal II on the northern side of the existing domestic terminal. "The first floor will be used for departure while second floor will be used for arrival,” said Dinesh Kumar.

From an annual growth rate of 11 per cent in 2001-2002, passenger movement in Chennai has shot up to 51 per cent in 2006-2007. The new terminal would bring about massive addition of space and in turn augment passenger handling capacity, he said. “The new terminal is expected to take care of the domestic passenger growth expected in the next five years.

The idea is to equip the airport to handle more passengers by the time the expansion works gets going.” Construction will be funded from the Rs 1,800 crore earmarked for the expansion project, he added. Incidentally, the expansion plan is well behind schedule — the targeted date of completion was 2010.

AAI chairman K Ramalingam said construction of the parallel runway would be taken up in due course despite the cost escalation and trouble in land acquisition. “Many such works will be handled in phases,” he said.

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10 more parking bays in 2009 Chennai:

The Airports Authority of India is all set to lift the passenger facilities and aesthetics of the Chennai airport to international standards by 2010. A short-term infrastructure augmentation programme — including modernization of existing terminals, construction of more parking bays, installation of stateof-the-art weather monitoring systems and air traffic control equipment — has been kicked off for better handling of passenger and aircraft traffic. “We are working to make Chennai airport on a par with the best airports in the world,” said Dinesh Kumar, the airport director.

Ten more parking bays will be built next year. Four of them will be large enough to accommodate the wide-bodied 747. Three remote aircraft parking stands, big enough to park the giant Airbus 380, have already been built as more airlines have asked for permission to operate out of Chennai. At present, the airport has 57 aircraft parking bays. As part of modernisation, the domestic terminal space was increased by 980 sq mt and the first floor opened for departures. Today, the domestic terminal is spread over is 19,000 sq mt, which includes departure I and departure II. International arrival is being modernized through renovation of the existing terminal in two phases. The first phase saw setting up of four green channel counters, 10 red channel customs counters and six inclined bay baggage conveyor belts, a unique feature.

The second phase is in progress. At present, the international terminal is spread over 37,156 sq mt. Passengers who use the airport frequently also feel the need for upgradation of facilities. “The number of check-in counters, baggage-scanning machines and security-check counters need to be doubled in both domestic and international terminals,” says D Sudhakara Reddy, president of Air Passenger Association of India.

“The 32 check-in counters in each terminal are not adequate to handle the steep rise in passenger traffic. There are long queues every day, affecting departure of the flights during peak hours,” an airline official said. — V Ayyappan

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