Chennai floods: Flight operations resume; holiday for schools, colleges tomorrow

Chennai: The flight operations in flood-marred Chennai resumed after a Chennai-Port Blair flight took off at 10:40 AM on Sunday.

Also, due to heavy rains, collector of Chennai has announced one day holiday (Monday) for schools and colleges in Chennai district.

Earlier, in the morning, heavy rains were reported in and around Chennai airport area ahead of resumption of flight operations.

The airport authorities had received requests from national carrier Air India to operate flights on Sunday after the AAI announced day-time operations of passenger flights from the airport.

"Air India has informed us that it will operate a chartered flight to Port Blair and one flight to and fro Chennai on Sunday," sources told PTI.

The Air India chartered flight AI-549 is scheduled to take off at 10 am while the airlines' flight AI 429 is scheduled for arrival at Chennai Airport at 1.40 pm, they said.

The same flight AI 430 (AI 429 on return) will depart for New Delhi at 2.45 pm, they added.

A total 34 aircraft of various airlines were stranded at the airport when the Airports Authority of India (AAI) had decided to shut the airport till December 6 in the wake of battering rains that left the facility unusable.

The AAI had yesterday declared the runway fit for operating technical ferry and relief flights after an inspection by its staff.

A decision regarding full-fledged operations will soon be taken by the aviation regulator DGCA.

Four ferry flights that were parked at Chennai Airport departed for Delhi, Mumbai and Port Blair yesterday while one Cargo flight Singcargo B747 departed for Singapore via Bangalore.

On an average, Chennai airport handles 320 landings and departures. As many as 20 international airlines operates from the airport apart from most of the domestic carriers.