New Arrivals area in Chennai International Airport is Better

This time when I landed in (Anna International Terminal - July 30, 07) Chennai International Airport, it was a welcome change to set foot on to brand new arrival area. Well, don't let your imagination fly miles high, it is only a marginal improvement from the earlier one, but nevertheless an improved one.

Immigration Area:
Now the place is lot bigger and brighter. However, it didn't appear that they had increased the staffing. It appeared to take the same amount of time like in previous occasions.

Hand Baggage Screening
Still the same old scanning device. I think it must be there only for its deterrent value, as the custom officer seems to be interested only in the hand baggage and not the what the person could be carrying in person. As no body seems to be bother about the continuous beeps that come from the X-Ray machine as the passengers walk through the scanning device.

Luggage Arrival

This area has gone through significant improvement. Now the area is bigger, brighter and is equipped with 4 new better conveyor belts. They are longer allowing more people to spot their luggage easily and more importantly lot quieter.


Interestingly, Of the 3 pieces of information displayed there, only one was right. It was LH 758 but not from BRA and not a Singapore Airlines flight. Hopefully, these just some minor opening glitches and are already fixed.


Army of drivers waiting for their pick up. This is a typical scene in most of the Indian Airports, but is better regulated in the new arrivals area.


Passenger manifest on display. I thought these are confidential.. wonder how they are putting it out like this.


Heavy downpour made the place a mess and stranded many passengers. The downpour started after our landing and delayed baggage retrieval by over 30 minutes. Even after picking up my luggage, I couldn't get to my car because of the heavy downpour.