Saturday, December 30, 2017

A runway to nowhere: Where AAI failed

Rattled by a strong report of non-compliance from the Union ministry of environment over the second runway and the new terminals at Chennai airport, the Airports Authority of India plans to study and prepare a proper response. The project would not have proceeded had there been deviations, a senior official said.
"The report will be studied before a response is given, he said, adding that a decision would be taken based on the response.
As per information provided to the environment ministry, the second runway was to handle wide-body planes like B747s or A380s. But the runway is being used only for narrow body ATRs and A320s because of absence of safety buffer zone on either end, defeating the purpose of runway extension. The AAI sought more land on the extended end, but the state was not able to give it leadiong to the runway not being better than before.
The bridge across the Adyar to extend the second runway to equip the short runway to handle B747s and A380s seems to have been poorly planned. The runway was extended, but there was not enough land for a safety buffer. The runway lies in an incline with a dip in the centre as the level of extended end was raised to prevent flooding. Airlines are hesitant to use it as AAI attempted cross-runway operations using both runways simultaneously twice and failed.
30/12/17 Times of India
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