New Traffic Pattern At Chennai Airport From Today!

In a bid to reduce time taken to enter and exit Chennai Airport and ease the congestion in front of the international and domestic terminals of the airport, the pick-up and drop points at both terminals will be changed from today.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) will put in place a revised traffic pattern which will be in effect from 11 am, today.

What this means is that AAI will provide separate access to departure and arrival levels in both domestic and international terminals.

The airport, which now has only one entry and exit at present,  will have three entry points.

The vehicles in the departure level will have to drop passengers and exit the airport, and will not have access to parking facility both in domestic and international terminals.

However, for those picking up passengers from the airport, there is a separate pick-up lane earmarked for private vehicles and cab aggregator Ola.

The commercial vehicles will not have access to the pick-up lane; they have been slotted the parking lanes at the airport. Passengers will have to walk down to the parking lane to get access to the commercial vehicles.

Here is a detailed summary of the changes:

• Vehicles coming to drop passengers at the domestic terminal, as of now, take a right turn to the ramp. However, Such vehicles will now take a left turn and drive up a ramp near the airport metro station turn right and reach the departure terminal.
• Cars that come to drop passengers at the international terminal will enter through a new gate, take a left turn, drive up the farther arm of the flyover & take a right turn to reach the departure terminal before driving down a ramp near the metro station.
• Vehicles reaching arrival terminals on the on the ground floor will follow the same circular pattern as before.
• Three points have been opened on GST Road for vehicles coming out of the airport to take ‘U’ turns to go towards Pallavaram.

The vehicle parking charges will remain the same. However, the charges will be revised shortly after the new traffic flow is established satisfactorily.

The new traffic plan was to be introduced in May this year, but it was delayed because the parking contractor who was also in-charge of collecting entry fee for vehicles defaulted and had to be terminated.