Thursday, September 21, 2017

Chennai needs a greenfield airport at the earliest, Jayant Sinha

Chennai: With air travel growing rapidly at 15 to 20%, Chennai airport needs a greenfield airport at the earliest, said Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha.

After inaugurating the first flight service between Chennai and Mysuru, as part of the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) here, he said the city’s airport will soon have exhausted its capacity in a few years, even with the modernised terminals in place.

“At least in about five to six years, we need to build a new greenfield airport for the city, for which about 1,000 to 2,000 acres of land are required. We are in discussions with the State government in this regard,” he said.

The greenfield airport will be like a global hub for the State with a capacity to serve for another 30 to 40 years. “It will become a tremendous driver for economic growth and will have [infrastructure] development around it, like for instance, hospitality and tourism,” he said.
Mr. Sinha said that the second round of bidding of RCS will begin next week. “Of the 400 airstrips in the country, 100 have become operational now and we have a long way to go. Airlines such as IndiGo which did not participate in the first round of RCS bidding have now purchased order for 50 ATR aircraft for ?10,000 crore. We want to even connect Andaman and Nicobar islands, northeast and hilly areas with smaller planes or even helicopters,” he said.
21/09/17 The Hindu
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