The Tamil Nadu government has set the ball rolling for developing a new greenfield airport at Parandur near Chennai with a tender to select a consultant to prepare a Detailed Techno-Economic Report (DTER). The report will include forecasting the traffic (passenger, aircraft and cargo) up to FY69-70 at an interval of five years starting from FY23-24.

An investment of ₹20,000 crore is being planned to develop the greenfield airport, 60 km from Chennai airport. It will annually handle 10 crore (100 million) people; it will feature two runways, terminal buildings, taxiways, apron and a cargo terminal.

The DTER will consider demand drivers such as industrial growth, regional economic growth, tourism growth and per capita incomes, considering Chennai as a single location/destination, says a tender issued by the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Limited (Tidco), which is mandated to select the consultants.

Traffic Forecasting and Demand & Market Assessment will include preparing historical passenger and aircraft movements and cargo traffic growth of Chennai airport over the last 15 years (minimum); assess the peak hour operating capacity of Chennai Airport considering the designed annual capacity of existing terminals and current additional capacity expansion, air-side infrastructure capacity and expansion constraints, if any, and operating standards as per international guidelines and analyse the air traffic growth trends and subsequent projections on the demand & supply scenario, the tender document said.

The consultants will also carry out Obstacle Limitation Surface study and to prepare, provide aeronautical charts and maps with due approval of Airports Authority of India.

The consultants need to prepare a detailed master plan incorporating air-side facilities, land-side facilities and associated infrastructure facilities like commercial facilities and Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul facilities; identify infrastructure, its development phases and prepare cost estimates and financial models for the project, the tender notice issued by Tidco said.

Tamil Nadu has four international airports at Chennai, Coimbatore, and Tiruchi and Madurai and two domestic airports at Thoothukudi and Salem.

Chennai airport is the fourth busiest airport in the country handling 22.54 million passengers in 2018-19, constituting a 6.5 per cent share in India’s total passenger movement. It is expected to get saturated by 2028 as per traffic growth forecasts, thus necessitating a second airport at Chennai.

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