Air travellers flying from the Tiruchi international airport to overseas destinations will soon have the facility to get real-time information of flights.
A fully automated Airport Operations Control Centre (AOCC) set up at the airport bringing together various stakeholders will provide real-time data of aircraft landing in Tiruchi.
Equipped with the required paraphernalia and trained staff, the automated centre is all set to be commissioned shortly. The AOCC with multiple applications has been integrated with the Air Traffic Control system.
The Flight Information Display Boards, beaming the latest data, will help passengers ascertain the exact status of flights thereby avoiding manual interface.
Once commissioned, Tiruchi will be one of the 10 airports throughout the country to have the AOCC in place. The AOCC is in place at airports including Chennai, Kolkata, Mangaluru, Guwahati, and Jaipur.
Networked with Chennai international airport, the AOCC has been put in place by bringing together airlines, ground handling agencies, customs, and immigration on a single platform to provide better service to travellers.
The AOCC will essentially act as the “nerve centre” of the airport in the day- to- day operations of the stakeholders, airport sources said.
The system aims at enabling the stakeholders make optimum utilisation of their men and machinery, a senior official said. The centre would allot the bay number on which the aircraft should arrive upon landing and conveyed to the respective airlines and ground handling agencies in advance. The system would allot the conveyor belt number for collection of baggage by passengers upon arrival.
The AOCC has been conceived in such a way to make add-on in future such as automatic announcements of flights upon arrival and integration with baggage handling, Mr. Negi said. Barring the lone domestic Jet Airways, the rest are overseas airlines operating flights from Tiruchi to Colombo, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, and Singapore. On an average, 15 flights are operated from Tiruchi airport daily with the number of passengers handled being 3,000 to 3,300 a day.
