Centre plans to develop aerocity around Chennai’s second greenfield airport

CHENNAI:

The governments at the Centre and State are working together to firm up plans on setting up a second airport, a greenfield facility, and developing an aerocity around it.

Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha told reporters that efforts are on to acquire 1,000 to 2,000 acres of land to develop a world class greenfield aerocity on lines like that of Gurgaon.

The new airport, he added, would be built within next five years as Chennai airport would attain saturation by then.

To a query on whether the plans to expand the present airport would be hit with the proposal to go in for a greenfield airport, the minister said work was progressing in this regard and the bids for building new terminals as part of Phase II expansion of Chennai airport would be floated in January next year.

"From the date of bidding, it will take 24 to 36 months to complete the entire second phase of Chennai airport expansion," he said.

The expansion work is likely to cost more than Rs 2,000 crore along with a walkator in front of the terminal building and some airside work.

The minister, who was here to inaugurate the opening of air services from Chennai to Mysuru, said the first phase of regional connectivity scheme has been a success with bigger players like Indigo, Jet Airways and Spicejet wanting to take part in the bids under the second phase.

“There are 400 airstrips in India and under the fist phase we are planning to open 100 of them,” he said.

The minister added that he was looking into suggestions of having more international flights to Coimbatore and Tiruchy, and better service to Madurai.

Meanwhile, Trujet Managing director, V Mahesh said Trujet will also launch service from Thoothkudi to Chennai on November. “It will be a non-regional connectivity scheme service,” he added.