Commercial flights resume operations from Chennai airport after 4 days as rains mellow down

Day time commerical flights from Chennai began on Sunday with the first Air India flight to Port Blair taking off this morning as rains mellowed down. An Air India flight from Delhi is expected to land at 1:30 pm.

This is the first service after operations were stopped in the wake of rains. 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.

AI fligts to Hyderabad and Delhi are also scheduled to operate today. 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.

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.

Meanwhile, intermittent rains continued to lash rest of the city and 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 8.30 am, according to 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 today.

In particular, MeT authorities said that coastal Tamil Nadu including Cuddalore are likely to receive "heavy to very heavy" rainfall in the next 24-48 hours.

As rains continued on and off, water-logging continued in several localities with some areas like Mudichur, and Oorappakkam, witnessing severe inundation.

This hampered free movement of vehicles and several local buses were delayed inconveniencing the passengers. However, the improved transport facilities including buses, trains and the popular share-autos which are back on roads were aiding the city to limp back to normalcy.

Mobile phone and Internet services were getting restored in a phased manner in several parts of the city. Supply of essential commodities like milk and vegetable has improved.

At least 245 people have died in rain-related incidents since October one.

Over 3,50,000 people were rescued by Central and State agencies. Chennai, Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur districts took a beating on December 1 when a large number of areas were flooded.

The deluge destroyed crucial road and rail links, shutdown the airport, snapped power and telecom lines and left lakhs of people stranded.