CHENNAI: The T2 integrated terminal building at the Chennai airport which was expected to be ready by September this year to handle international passenger movement is likely to be delayed by a couple of months as equipment supply from China has been delayed following the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, said Airports Authority of India’s (AAI) Officiating Airport Director for Chennai CV Deepak.
“The supply of equipment such as aerobridges, chillers and information technology (IT) devices are getting delayed as the factories are closed in China. We expect the import to resume within two months,” Deepak told Express. The T2 building is expected to help air passengers to a great extent, as they would no more need to walk around half a kilometre from the domestic terminal to international terminal or vice-versa. The new integrated terminal will have additional check-in counters and the latest IT system.
The airport director maintained that the entire airport expansion works will end by February 2022 and then the airport will be able to handle 34 to 35 million passengers yearly. When queried on the need for a second airport, CV Deepak said that it is the State government that has to decide on the issue. Top State government officials refused to comment.
“Air passenger movement, which was around 23 million in December last year, has declined due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The entire airline industry has been hit,” Deepak added. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) had recently said that its initial assessment of COVID-19’s impact showed a potential 13 per cent annual loss of passenger demand for carriers in the Asia-Pacific region.