Chennai airport has potential to become hub for South East Asia: AAI chairman

AAI looking into Emirates Group proposal to make Chennai Airport its hub

Airports Authority of India (AAI) has said that it is looking at the potential of the Chennai Airport becoming a hub for airline companies in South East Asia region. The new international and national airports is completed now with an investment of Rs 2015 crore.

While addressing the reporters in a meeting to announce the inauguration programme of new terminals, V P Agrawal said that the Emirates Group has intimated their interest to make the Chennai Airport its hub. The AAI is currently looking at the proposal.

The authority is also open to such proposals, he added.

The connectivity with sea ports and the availability of major cargo routes would be an advantage for the airport to become a hub, compared to the airports in the nearby states, he said.

The new airport has come up with an actual investment of Rs 2015 crore, while the original estimations were of Rs 1808 crore. The authority is expecting the period for pay back to be in nearly 10 years, said Agrawal.

The new domestic terminal would have a capacity of 10 million, while for international it is 4 million. The combined area of the new terminals is around 1,33,462 sq mts. The terminals would be inaugurated by the Vice President Hamid Ansari on Thursday afternoon.

The handling capacity in domestic terminal would go up to 16 million and the international terminal to 7 million per annum, with the new terminals. This would help the authority to handle the increased passenger volume and cope with future growth and demand, said Agrawal.

He added that the current capacity utilisation is around 12.5 million passengers out of a capacity of 23 million and the utilisation is expected to reach 100% by 2017-18. The airport has a potential to increase the capacity to 40 million, beyond which it would require a greenfield project, he added.