Inauguration of Chennai airport's integrated terminal postponed

CHENNAI: The inauguration of the Chennai airport's new integrated terminal which was planned on March 27 has now been postponed until April.

The Chennai Airport has completed the first phase of integrated air terminals, which are being built for Rs 2,400 crore and are being built on 2.36 lakh square meters.

Once the terminal becomes operational, the number of passengers will increase from 2.2 crores to 3.5 crores in a year. The construction work of the new terminal is almost completed and machines for handling passengers' belongings, for speedy checking and dispatch of belongings have been installed and they were tested three weeks ago. The engineers from 12 airports are deployed on duty in the Chennai airport for the installation of all the machines.

The work has been happening day and night for the past two weeks. Initially, it was said that the airport will be inaugurated by the Prime Minister during his Tamilnadu visit on March 27. Now, since the works for installing the machines have not been completed in the new terminal, the inauguration is getting postponed. Sources said the work is expected to be completed at the end of the month and then the Prime Minister would visit the Chennai airport and inaugurate the new terminal on April 8 or 14.