Despite the fact that most people are in a tearing hurry to board their flight, their eyes always make time to stare at the glass-and-steel behemoth that greets them as they enter the airport complex. In those brief moments when they shift their eyes from the sparkling new airport terminals and look towards the aged, rather outdated structure that is the Kamaraj domestic terminal, is the return to reality. ‘When can we use THAT airport?’ is the question on most travellers’ minds, as they settle on the uncomfortable steel chairs in the old terminal. January 31 might just be that answer. Barring an approval from Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s office, there is little else that can stop the airport from being inaugurated within the next month.
So what exactly will this mean for the air travellers, frequent fliers, first-time users and general public of Chennai? Quite a lot. The most obvious difference for passengers is that the new airport terminal is a 5-level structure, where arrivals are handled on the bottom level and the departures are handled on the elevated level, “This means that cars who are picking up people and dropping people will not be on the same level. This will reduce the traffic logjam and also, people will know where to wait without confusion,” said one of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials involved with this expansion project. This will be a far cry from the existing system where the departure and arrival gates are side-by-side, resulting in a lot of confusion.
Once inside the ingeniously constructed metal-and-glass building, the second most important addition is the number of check-in counters - 52, a far cry from the existing few at the old terminal. “Like in the newer airports at Mumbai and Hyderabad, these counters will reduce the waiting time for passengers to check-in. As they are not rigidly fixed for a specific airline, they can open up another check-in counter next to it to stop the formation of long queues,” airport director HS Suresh said earlier. Of these counters, 34 were supposed to have Common User Terminal Equipment (CUTE) systems in place, so that any airline could use a terminal by just logging in.
Frequent fliers will love the new airport - not only is the seating in the waiting areas more plush, all airlines have been given spaces to establish their ‘exclusive’ lounges for important guests - a feature that was lacking at the Chennai airport, “This will put Chennai’s airport on par with the others as all we had till date was a VIP waiting room. This will be a cut above,” said another official in the engineering department.
An increased number of aerobridges also ensured that the time taken to board a flight is greatly reduced – there will be lesser instances of having to walk on the tarmac to enter the plane. Despite all the delays, the excitement among airport staff is almost palpable, as they gear up to work in the new terminal. This is important as it depends on most of these conservancy workers to ensure that the bigger, more advanced, better airport also earns the ‘cleaner’ tag.