New Delhi: As work on the city side of the Chennai airport is under way with the construction of the T3 International Terminal, a major airside work commenced recently to expand the number of aircraft movements and help airlines save fuel.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has begun the work to build 10 rapid exit taxiways at the airport. This project will aid aircraft in vacating the runway quickly and, in turn, allow them to cut down on fuel consumption. It will also help manage airside congestion in the future.
AAI officials said they had applied for clearance from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), and after the approval came in the last week of April, the work commenced.
“After a few years of construction, we finished building a couple of rapid exit taxiways. Now, additional ones are also planned to enhance the efficiency of the airport. Currently, the airport handles 36 aircraft movements an hour and such infrastructure will facilitate the airport to handle 45 movements an hour in the future, when air traffic increases. The runway occupancy time (RoT), the period of time an aircraft is on the runway, for the main runway will decrease from 70 seconds to 60 seconds,” an official said.
At present, the airport has aircraft movement of nearly 450-460 planes per day. “When the Phase II Modernisation Project is completed with the opening of the T3 International Terminal in December, the air and passenger traffic will slowly increase. To handle these, we have planned this project,” another official said.
The planning for this work began as early as 2024 and had to go through various levels of approvals before the work could be commenced. This project will be completed in a year. Though initially, 11 rapid exit taxiways were planned, the AAI changed it to 10 in the final plan. The revised estimated cost of this project now stands at ₹230 crore, officials added.
