Chennai airport to do away with junked planes

CHENNAI: The city airport, on Wednesday, commenced the process of dismantling and removing abandoned planes that have been taking up the space in its parking bays for the past several years.

Airport sources said there were 12 junked planes, belonging to NEPC Airlines, Jet Airways and Kingfisher airlines that were parked in the bay for the past many years without being removed after the closure of the airlines.

In 2021, four planes belonging to NEPC and Jet Airways were dismantled and the parts were destroyed without affecting the environment. The work was done under the supervision of the Revenue department. A few months ago two planes belonging to Kingfisher Airlines were cleared and now the remaining five planes of Kingfisher Airlines will be cleared.

Sources said the planes will be dismantled and the engines and other parts which can be reused would be kept safe and exported to foreign countries.

The officials are currently calculating the estimated cost of the parts of the planes and once it is done everything will be dismantled and taken off. Airport sources said removing these planes would free more parking space in the bay and the movements of birds would decrease since the birds were forming nests inside the unused aircraft.