AAI plans to start departures from unused international arrival hall at airport

CHENNAI : Airports Authority of India (AAI) is planning to start a few departures from the unused international arrival hall as part of the efforts to use it and also to boost the international passenger handling capacity of the airport.
The decision was taken at a stakeholders’ meeting held by Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) to gather opinions on fixing user fee and other charges for the next five years at Chennai airport.

Since AAI may be investing money to do some modification of facilities inside the terminal building to start departures, AERA is considering to charge a nominal user development fee from passengers to the tune of Rs 75 to Rs 100 (per passenger). This will be a considerable decrease from Rs 160 charged from domestic passengers and Rs 667 charged from international passengers now.

Airport director G Chandramouli said, “We will commission the international arrival hall, which is lying unused, and will start a few departures from there in six months. A few modifications need to be done like introducing a few conveyors. This will help add passenger capacity of the international terminal. We will be able to handle around 8 million international passengers per year as against the current 4 million passengers when the new facility is commissioned.”

He also said that more departures would be possible from Chennai airport because of the additional space that would be provided for airlines on the ground floor of the international terminal.

AAI was not able to commission the arrival hall because of inadequate space and lack of manpower (customs and immigration).

He said that a nominal user development fee might be charged from passengers once AERA takes a final decision based on the inputs received from stakeholders who attended the meeting.

“A decision on user development fee would be taken by AERA in a few weeks after collating the inputs given by passenger associations, airlines and others. Earlier, AAI had suggested that it should be allowed to continue collection of user fee. AERA said that either user fee needs to be nominal or the airlines may have to pay huge landing and parking charges,” said an official.