Chennai has to wait longer for its 2nd airport; current one to reach saturation point by 2024

CHENNAI: Chennai may have to wait longer for the second airport as the state government is yet to call for bids for establishing the second airport in the 4,500 acres land in Parandur.

Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO), the nodal agency for developing Greenfield airport, is yet to decide on a consultant for preparing techno-economic feasibility report. The techno-economic feasibility report would include survey, masterplan, financial model, mandatory clearances, bid management etc., for the greenfield airport site.

The new site for the likely-to-be-proposed second airport is 60 km away from the Chennai International Airport. It was chosen after various locations including Mamandur and Cheyyur in Chengalpet district and a land near Gummidipoondi in Tiruvallur district were considered.

It is learnt that TIDCO postponed pre-bid exercise which was scheduled in March this year due to Covid-19 pandemic. When Express contacted an official source, he said that no decision on resumption of calling for bids has been taken till now. This would mean that Chennai's wait continues for more than a decade for the second airport even as experts have warned that the current airport is set to reach saturation level by the next five years.

An airport source said that Chennai airport is expected to get saturated by 2024 as per the traffic growth forecasts. Currently, the existing airport has the capacity to handle traffic of 15 million. However, in the last fiscal year 2019, it touched 22 million.

A Chennai airport official said that after the integrated terminal, which is taking shape, the capacity of the current airport will be enhanced to handle traffic of 40 million till 2030 but this won't be enough. Officials have stressed the need to speed up the process for building the second airport.

Interestingly, the report ‘Comprehensie Integrated Master Plan for Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor’ prepared by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has suggested that the additional airport in Chennai is necessary as passenger demand is expected to surpass capacity in 2020-21. The report states that considering the time period of two to three years for land acquisition and development period of three to four years, the efforts for creation of this airport needs to begin immediately.

JICA was pushing for a new airport as Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor is expected to increase manufacturing output significantly.

This will also lead to increase in migration of skilled workforce and business travel significantly. JICA has predicted that the total air passenger traffic in Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial corridor airports is expected to be 118 million in the business as usual (BAU) scenario.