Chennai airport’s air traffic to get smoother

CHENNAI: Flight diversions and peak hour air congestion may soon be eliminated at Chennai airport as a command centre for Air Traffic Flow Management which was opened recently in Delhi will work to allot slots for airlines for take-off and landing.
This will be done by monitoring the air and ground congestions at airports — especially the most congested ones in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
A senior official said that air traffic controllers sitting in Chennai will be in touch with controllers at the command centre in Delhi and based on their instruction, they will give clearance to planes for take off.
This will avoid the need for diversion of planes to other airports if there is a problem at the destination airports.
Similarly, incoming planes will get a better idea about the number of flights that are lined up over the airport waiting for landing permission. On an average, around 15 to 20 planes are approaching to land at a time. And peak hour congestion is a major problem that airlines face in Chennai.
Often, flights to Delhi get diverted to Jaipur and nearby airports because of air congestion at the national capital.
Flights to Bengaluru from other airports get diverted to Chennai during night peak hours adding pressure on the air traffic controllers and ground staff . Recently, there were major delays at Mumbai airport due to rains.
"A flight which is ready for take off in Chennai will be given clearance only after checking if there is a congestion at destination airport and whether it will be cleared by the time the plane reaches. If that is not possible planes to the destination will be delayed in Chennai," he added.
The system also allows air traffic controllers to get real-time flight position at about 35 airports.
As slots for planes are alloted based on requests made by airlines, there are back-to-back departures and arrivals in Chennai during peak hour. It is a similar situation in all major airports. If one plane gets delayed and causes a disruption, the entire operation of the airport goes for a toss, forcing arriving flights to depart and departing planes to get stuck in Chennai. The flow management system was launched sometime ago but was perfected now. A command centre which will be monitoring ground and air congestions at airports was set up last month.