The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : New passenger concourse at Kamaraj Airport

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 26, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

New passenger concourse at Kamaraj Airport

T.S. Shankar

It will cater exclusively to four domestic carriers

WELL EQUIPPED: The new domestic departure module at Chennai airport constructed at a cost of Rs. 1 crore by the Airports Authority of India. — Photo: A. Muralitharan

CHENNAI: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has constructed a departure passenger concourse module as an extension of the Kamaraj Domestic Terminal (KDT), which has registered a whopping 50 per cent growth in the domestic passenger traffic in the first quarter of this year.

Giving details of the Rs.1 crore KDT Departure-II module, Chennai Airport Director Dinesh Kumar said the 880 sq mt module was equipped with 15 check-in counters and would cater exclusively to four domestic carriers: Air Sahara, Air Deccan, Spice Jet, and Go Air.

Special counters

The highlight of the Departure-II facility would be the "express check-in" counters to facilitate passengers with hand baggage.

These special counters would also segregate those with checked-in baggage and thereby ease the congestion. The existing KDT has nine designated domestic operators including Indian (formerly Indian Airlines), its subsidiary, Alliance Air, Jet Airways, Air Sahara, Kingfisher, Air Deccan, Spice Jet, Paramount Airways, Go Air.

Indigo Airways has announced its intentions to commence operations from October this year.

The Departure-II facility with vitrified anti-skid flooring would have a baggage screening scanner, back-up office facility for the airlines, a snack bar, an Indian Bank Automatic Teller Machine and a Flight Information Display System, to disseminate information about the status of the services. The Chennai Airport handles over 230 aircraft movements. "During the first quarter of 2006-07, a robust growth of 50 per cent has been registered in the domestic passenger traffic," Mr. Kumar said.

The recent surge in the domestic passenger traffic is attributed to the growing number of low-cost carriers and the full-fledged airlines augmenting their services.

Chairman of the AAI K. Ramalingam, is likely to declare open the new passenger amenity by the end of the month.

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