Days after being flooded and nearly seeing aircraft drown, the Chennai airport’s runway is finally dry. For days together, even as the officials were using 20 motors to pump out water from the runway, there was no impact as the water level was only increasing; their only objective at that time, they say, was to avoid flooding inside the terminals of the Chennai airport.
Thousands of passengers were stranded and evacuated in batches by bus from the Chennai airport. Also, 22 flights were stranded at the airport. But now after clearance from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the Chennai airport may finally commence operations for departures alone for daytime operations. Officials of Airports Authority of India (AAI) said this was only for relief and ferry operations. Temporarily, flight operations will be at INS Rajali air base at Arakkonam. But many passengers still don’t know how to buy tickets and get a flight.
