AAI chairman V. P. Agarawal has hinted that the Chennai airport is likely to be privatised following the instructions from the civil aviation ministry to lease out the airport to private players.

Union minister of state for civil aviation K. C. Venugopal said that the Chennai airport was a model for others and also said that the problems including roofing collapse and bad maintenance would be addressed soon. He was speaking after inspecting the new terminals at the airport. Experts say that the passengers might be required to pay higher user development fee (UDF) if the airport is leased out to the private players.

Agrawal said the union civil aviation ministry had asked AAI to lease out Kolkata and Chennai airports to private players. The union civil aviation minister Ajit Singh had said recently in the parliament that a task force had recommended operating and managing Kolkata and Chennai airports through public private partnership (PPP) mode.

Meanwhile, AAI is also planning to share the cost of acquiring 15.66 acre of land to install lighting system that will allow the airport to use all 9,000 feet secondary runway length on Adyar river.