Reportedly after several years of discussions, talks on a second airport in Chennai may finally bear fruit with the state government short listing six new locations for the same. Meanwhile the newly shortlisted locations for a second city airport included Thiruporur, Cheyyar, Vallathur, Thodur, Maduramangalam and Mappedu.
Presently the state government is also likely to hold talks with officials of the Airports Authority of india to decide which location would be the most feasible to build a second airport and a site visit and inspection too is likely to be held. Furthermore the land requirement for the new airport is around 2000 to 2500 acres and the locations were shortlisted from a bunch of places that were initially identified. Perhaps one of the places was identified around two months ago but failed to be approved by the AAI for technical reasons and lack of suitability.
Moreover the city needs a second airport due to the existing airport getting saturated due to the increasing air traffic. Hence with the Chennai airport’s phase-2 modernization project being completed in the next two years, the airports passenger capacity may see an increase from 18 million to 35 million. Moreover the increasing air traffic has made it necessary to identify a new location for a second airport.
