In about 10 days from now, regular international flights will resume from Chennai after two years with the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.
As part of the preparation to resume international flights, officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) held a meeting on Wednesday with all stakeholders in the Chennai airport, including airlines, customs, immigration and CISF. “We are handling close to 10,000 passengers and this may go up by another 5,000-10,000 depending on the load factor in flights. We have asked the CISF, customs and immigration to deploy additional staff, close to what they had before the outbreak of the pandemic. The primary concern is to ensure smooth operations and clear the queues in minimum time,” an official said.
Though regular flights are to restart, full-fledged operations may see a slower return as some airlines may take time to resume flights here, sources said. “We will know how many flights each airline will operate in the coming week when the final flight schedule arrives. This is bound to evolve after the operations begin. During the first week of resumption of flights, we will be monitoring at night to check if there are any issues in the terminal as well,” the official said.
Nearly 20 airlines use the Chennai airport to operate hundreds of flights to many international destinations such as the U.S., the U.K., Europe and West Asia. Officials said the aircraft movement had reached about 60% of the pre-pandemic level. “We think the air travel will pick up quickly if there is no fourth wave of COVID-19. Many countries have lifted quarantine and the rule on negative RT-PCR certificates. Most of them just ask for vaccine certificate now. People are confident of travelling everywhere without any fear,” another official said.
The following is the break-up of the air traffic from Chennai registered in the month of January in the last three years.
| Month and year | No. of passengers | No. of flights |
| January 2020 | 5,51,723 | 3,352 |
| January 2021 | 1,00,381 | 1,424 |
| January 2022 | 2,06,167 | 2,022 |
