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The Emirates Group has shown interest in making Chennai airport as its hub.
“We are looking at this and are open to any airline for such an arrangement,” said V.P. Agrawal, Chairman, Airports Authority of India. In fact, the Emirates group is one of the biggest airlines in the Chennai airport for both passenger and cargo segments.
“With the newly built terminals and better sea connectivity, Chennai airport could become a hub mainly to connect the South-East Asian countries,” he told newspersons.
Airports in Hyderabad and Bangalore do not have the advantages that Chennai has, he said.
According to Agrawal, the Chennai airport’s capacity can go up to 40 million from the present 23 million, which will be enough till 2017-18.
In fact, the Centre for Aviation had given its recommendation to increase the capacity to 40 million. “We are looking at this and will take action soon,” he said.
On the user development fee at Chennai airport, Agrawal said that there would be a marginal increase but it will be lower than some of the private terminals.
The capacity of the airports in India is expected to reach 271.24 million passengers by the end of the 12th Plan, which will be adequate to handle the project demand of 268.44 million passengers up to 2016-17, says a press release.
At present five major airports are being operationaised under the private-public-partnership at New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kochi. The new terminal building is under construction at Mumbai airport and phase I for international operations is likely to be ready by August, while the second phase for domestic operations will be ready by August 2014.
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