The secondary runway at the Chennai airport will be closed for 45 days from September 16 for taking up the link taxiway construction work.
Airports Authority of India (AAI) said it was proposed to construct three link taxiways connecting the primary runway and the secondary runway. For this work, the main runway was closed from July 1 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in order to accommodate all the wide-bodied aircraft to wind up their operations. With the completion of the work on the primary runway it has been decided to take up the work on the secondary runway.
Now the authorities would take up the construction of small link taxiway. With the completion of work at the primary runway, it would be available for operations, said the AAI authorities.
The AAI also plans to take up the regular maintenance work of the primary runway. For this work, the runway would be closed between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. During that period the secondary runway would be made available for the landing and take off of aircraft. As the aircraft movement is not heavy between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. it was decided to close the main runway during the period for maintenance work.
Cleaning the rubber deposits, maintenance of runway lighting system and painting of centre and edge lines were the importance maintenance works for which the runway would be closed, said the authorities.
The AAI has also proposed to close down the secondary runway totally from January next year in order to take up grade correction work, said the AAI authorities.
They said by January construction of a bridge, for a distance of 400 metres, across Aydar River is expected to be completed. After that the grade correction work had to be taken up from the existing secondary runway to the newly created one.
