Originally Posted by
surram
Thank you...this helps. Apologies...I have a few more questions:
1. What was the terminal number that was (re)built in 2014? Because I recall that had a few more lounges and they were good when I last visited many years ago. Are they all closed?
2. So, once Phase 2 is complete, they will move international operations again to the "new international terminal"? If yes, that seems like a lot of shifts. If yes, that reflects very poor planning and design.
3. When they built this "supposedly great T2" why were the lounges not given priority? Why only ONE lounge and that too a makeshift one? It does not instill confidence in AAI's abilities. If I compare non-AAI managed ones like BLR, BOM, DEL they are all class apart.
4. When (or if) will MAA get out of the clutches of AAI and get privatized?
5. If the end state scenario will be T1 and T4 are both domestic with international in the middle, it appears to be another shoddy design principle...as someone transferring to another domestic airport (say DEL-MAA-Tiruchi/CBE/Madurai) would have to traverse a long distance, especially in the absence of people mover system like a monorail .
6. Anyone with half a brain would design a monorail or inter-terminal train to traverse these terminals that are built on a straight line (building terminals on a straight line is a bad design to begin with as it is not efficient for transfers). They are investing in travelators/moving walkways which are pretty slow and inefficient especially when the distance to cover is about 1-2 kms. A train would be much faster.
Really fed up with AAI
Originally Posted by
surram
Forgive me please for my despondence. This design makes no sense especially when the local/Indian news media portrays this "integrated" terminal as the best thing since sliced bread. What good does it do to keep domestic and international traffic under one roof when they cannot access each other? A single roof makes no difference from a passenger point of view.
Either this is a ridiculous design principle or maybe (most likely) I am missing something basic...Sigh!
1. T4 was built in 2014. Before that, it was just T3 and T1.
2. Not sure about their plan after phase 2 modernization is complete. They recently launched an airport mall and MLCP and now they want to shut down the airport due to the amount of parking spaces mallgoers are talking up. AAI in a nutshell
3/4/5/6 MAA was up for privatization a decade ago but due to strong protests, they couldn't privatize it. With general elections coming up in 2024, they will probably think of privatization only after the end of 2024. MAA has a lot of potential but the sluggishness of AAI is holding it back. Cathay has not restarted their service yet and we've lost ANA. The frequency of domestic services is less compared to other airports like BLR, HYD, BOM, and DEL. The state government is pushing for a new greenfield airport. Hopefully, it goes through and we will have two airports in the future. Coincidentally MAA opened a new Travel club lounge today with separate space for J and F. Looks neat!