CHENNAI: Around 72 aircraft were part of the aerial display over the Marina for the IAF Air Show 2024 on Sunday.
While lakhs of city residents enjoyed the show even in the mid-day heat, the streets and railway stations including the metro stations were overwhelmed with the crowd coming out after the show on Sunday afternoon.
In order to tackle the crowd, the Chennai Metro Rail announced that trains will be running at 3.5 mins frequency between the section Washermanpet Metro & AG DMS Metro. Trains were run at a 7 min frequency in the Corridor-1 section (Wimco Nagar Depot Metro - Airport Metro).
MRTS stations such as Triplicane, Chepauk, Perungudi, and Velachery were flooded with thousands of commuters on Sunday. Every inch of space on the platforms was occupied by travellers.
People from different parts of the city who visited Marina Beach and Velachery to watch the IAF air show experienced inconveniences due to limited train services on the MRTS line between Velachery and Chintadripet. Visitors demanded that trains should have been operated every 10 minutes; however, they were running every 30 minutes.
Despite the measures, several visitors complained of dizziness and pointed out poor crowd management by the authorities.