Chennai airport resumes daytime commercial flights amid fresh rain

CHENNAI: Daytime commercial flights from Chennai began today with the first Air India flight to Port Blair taking off this morning.
An Air India flight to Port Blair took off with 150 passengers at 10.50am while another Air India flight from New Delhi is expected to land at 1.30pm.
This is the first service after operations were stopped in the wake of rains on December 2. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) had decided to shut the airport till Sunday in the wake of battering rains that left the facility unusable.
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However, authorities are yet to take a decision on night and international flights.Domestic arrivals are being handled at the international arrival terminal.
34 aircraft of various airlines were stranded at the airport when the Airports Authority of India (AAI) decided to shut the airport. The AAI had on Saturday declared the runway fit for operating technical ferry and relief flights after an inspection by its staff.
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Four ferry flights that were parked at Chennai Airport departed for Delhi, Mumbai and Port Blair on Saturday 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.
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Meanwhile, intermittent rain continued to lash Chennai and its suburbs, which were limping back to normalcy aided by improved bus, train and communication services.
The city recorded 21.2 mm of rain and the suburbs 21.0 mm of rainfall during the 24 hours ending at 8.30am, according to the MeT authorities.
Rain or thundershowers have been forecast at many places in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Lakshadweep and at a few places over Kerala and south interior Karnataka for Sunday.
(With inputs from agencies)