Air traffic goes up, but ground infrastructure lags behind City Pulse

11-Mar-2008

Growth statistics can’t camouflage the airport’s tale of woes such as poor facilities, congestion

CHENNAI: A mismatch between the growth in air traffic and the development of infrastructure is the biggest challenge Indian aviation is currently facing, and nowhere is this more acute than in the case of the Chennai airport.

The Chennai airport boasts traffic and growth figures that airports around the world would die for, but getting past the impressive vital statistics , the airport also tells the story of poor infrastructure, average facilities and congestion. Access to the airport is another major problem air-travellers in Chennai face. Road works on the doorstep of the airport remain behind schedule causing inordinate delays, while efforts to improve access to the Tirusulam railway station have also come to nought.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) expects to spend Rs.3,400 crore on infrastructure projects around the country this year, and more than Rs.12,000 crore in the next five years. Chennai, with its significant growth, strategic location and lagging-behind infrastructure, is unsurprisingly at the centre of the AAI’s plans, allocated a whopping Rs.2,462 crore for upgrading the existing airport over the next 5 years.Much of this money will be spent on expanding the airport. The AAI believes that bringing infrastructure up to the desired levels hinges on its ambitious Rs.2,700 crore expansion project. On the 1,070 acres of the acquired land the plan proposed by the AAI includes a second runway parallel to the existing main runway .

At present, the main runway at the Chennai airport handles 28 aircraft movements an hour, according to a former AAI officer. Ideally, the officer says, the runway should not be handling more than 21 movements. There is, however, more to improving the infrastructure than just expanding the airport. Air traffic controllers admit that the radar equipment in Chennai is outdated. The AAI has been speaking of plans to modernise the air traffic control systems for months, but no improvements have yet been made.

For the amount of traffic that the Chennai airport receives, the facilities on offer, from parking to toilets, are below par, says D. Sudhakara Reddy, President, Air Passengers Association of India. Mr. Reddy says that the car-parks also need better organisation. “Cars are parked at the time of drop and pick-up in a haphazard fashion and there is no proper monitoring,” he says. The security checks also needed better administering.

While airport and government officials remain confident that the litigation over the land acquisition will soon be resolved and expansion work will shortly begin, the residents of Gerugambakkam, Tarapakkam, Manapakkam, Kolapakkam and Kovur villages have other ideas. They remain strongly opposed to the project, and are seething over how the State Government handled the process of acquiring land. Whether they are successful or not, the June 2010 deadline for completing the project is looking increasingly unlikely. The future of Chennai airport may be uncertain, but there can be no doubt that expansion or no expansion, the airport urgently requires an injection of rapid investment and improvement if it is to maintain its impressive trajectory of growth.

http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/11/stories/2008031157700300.htm