Chennai: People flying out of the city will hit a nasty air pocket even before they board an aircraft.
After contriving an epic botch-up with its Rs 2,300-crore project to build new state-of-the-art terminals at the Chennai airport, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Sunday started to collect user development fee (UDF) from passengers — despite neither terminal being opened and both appearing to be a long way from operation-ready.
In effect, passengers are paying for non-existent facilities.
The fee, usually levied to help recover project costs, is Rs 667 for international flights and Rs 166 for domestic flights. The airport operator, however, has imposed UDF on flyers to pay for its spectacular ineptitude and retrieve misspent funds.
11/03/13 Arun Janardhanan/Times of India
