Chennai: The main runway at the Meenambakkam airport is set to be extended to 4.058 km paving the way for wide-bodied aircraft like the Airbus A-380 series, which has three decks of floors, to use the international airport, where passenger traffic had been increasing by the day, forcing the authorities to look for a site to construct a second airport for Chennai.
Since the Greenfield airport, proposed to be set up at Parandur with ultra-modern facilities, might take a while to become operational with even land acquisition for the project not yet started and the plan was never to abandon the present airport in Meenambakam, the runway extension work is likely to start soon in right earnest making use of 10.20 acres of land, handed over to the Airports Authority of India recently by the State government.
Even otherwise, work on the construction of modern terminals for the international and domestic airports in Meenambakkam, spread out on 1,350 acres of land, is going on at a cost Rs 2,400 crore, and the new plan to extend the old runway by another 400 metres will only enable the landing and taking off of bigger aircraft like Airbus A-380 that are part of the fleet of carriers like Emrites and Singapore Airlines that operate services to Chennai.
So Chennai will soon join the select club of Indian airports with the facility for operating modern aircraft like Airbus A-380, which is now available only in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. Those aircraft with a seating capacity upto 746 seats in three floors have never landed in Chennai, which had seen many other aviation marvels like the Concorde and also the Airbus A 400M Atlas.
The A 400M Atlas belonging to the French Air Force landed in Chennai on Friday for a refueling stop and was a cynosure of all eyes at the airport as it was parked in the bay. Similarly many other aircraft have also landed in Chennai for various reasons though not the Airbus A-380 variety.
Now with the expansion of the runway, many more big bodied aircraft could be expected to come to Chennai even before the second airport becomes a reality. For, apart from adding 400 metres to the present 3,658 metres long runway, the authorities have also planned more amenities for smooth landing of aircraft.
Among the proposed new structures to be installed at the St Thomas Mount end of the runway are more modern lighting facilities and other equipment that would help pilots navigate that path while landing, which are highly essential while operating high-end planes.
