Passenger flights to operate from Chennai airport today

The authorities had, on Wednesday, chose to shut down the airport till noon on December 6 because of the incessant rains and the flooding of the area in and around the airport. The station, which had halted its services due to torrential rains and massive waterlogging, still looked empty as only few trains are scheduled for today. “The closure of the Chennai Airport has been further extended till 1100 hours of December 8, 2015”, Air India said mentioning it in a statement a statement about its flights to Hyderabad and Port Blair from Chennai. “But we are unable to resume commercial flights as the basement of the airport is still waterlogged and power supply of the terminal building has not been restored completely”. Decision on night time operations can be taken tomorrow. 34 aircraft of various airlines were stranded at the airport when the Airports Authority of India (AAI) made a decision to shut the airport. The Chennai airport closed for commercial operations on December 3 after the runways were clogged with flood water.

Chennai airport handles 320 landings and departures on an average. The flight carried 30 Air India personnel on board for extending logistics support essential to operate the flight from the makeshift airbase. Besides that, one flight is being operated from Delhi and back. As many as 20 global airlines operate from the airport, apart from most of the domestic carriers.

“This was bound to happen”.

However, there was no clarity on when private airlines would resume operations with ANI reporting that they were “not ready” despite clearance from the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA).

“Air India has informed us that it will operate a chartered flight to Port Blair and one flight to and fro Chennai on Sunday”, sources said this morning. “Rs 1,000 as fare will be charged for travelling to southern states and Rs 2,000 will be charged for northern states”, an aviation ministry official said.