Parking woes worsen at Chennai airport
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It is common knowledge that there is a severe shortage of parking space at the airport. It has come to light now the CAG had a year ago recommended to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) that it acquire the defence land opposite the airport for parking.
The AAI’s reluctance in following CAG’s recommendation has deepened the parking crisis with time restriction for free entry for dropping passengers adding fuel to the fire.
The CAG report said the public are forced to use their own transport as the ongoing works are making access difficult for public transport. While a multi level car parking system with capacity to park 2,400 cars was planned by the AAI in the first phase expansion of the Chennai airport, it was later shelved due to lack of bidders.
As per January 2011 report, the parking facilities at the Chennai airport have been drastically reduced despite increase in peak hour passengers at these terminals. While 1,080 passengers required parking facilities, only 900 slots were available before the expansion work began. Now, the peak hour traffic is 1,438 passengers, whereas only about 484 slots are available.
Although there were plans to procure defence land opposite the airport to park airport taxis, AAI has now decided to shelve that plan too. “We took a lot of time to get land from defence for current expansion work and so we have decided not to go for defence land again,” said airport director H. S. Suresh.
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