Enrich, Enhance And Empower

Director Chandramouli Ganesan Sees Much on the Horizon for Chennai Airport.

- Oliver Featherston

Chandramouli Ganesan’s tenure as Director of Chennai Airport has been a challenging one, but that’s exactly the way he prefers it. In fact, his 2016 arrival at Chennai Airport, managed by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), was greeted by Cyclone Vardah, a huge disruption in the airport’s otherwise eminently hospitable climate. But, as Chandramouli says, the challenges of the position are what drew him to Chennai to begin with.

“Would you like to go and join an airport where everything is fine, you have fantastic workers and you don’t need to do anything?” he says. “Or would you rather go to an airport where there has been a lot of difficulties and nothing much has been done? Honestly, I preferred the second option, because I’d rise to the challenge and be able to do something for the community.”

Before then, Chandramouli already had extensive experience across many of India’s airports, though he’d started as an electrical engineer before moving into management. His first role as Airport Director was in the Jammu and Kashmir region, a tough area to start with. He later worked in Pune, Calicut and Trivandrum before he finally settled in his current role in Chennai. Since then, he has worked to clarify the airport’s mission and purpose.

“My main objective was to force ourselves to understand who our customers were,” he says. “This is because there’s been a tremendous challenge in this area, so we’re trying to keep up with the customers’ needs. But that doesn’t work unless you have the proper infrastructure and facilities. Otherwise, you may never be able to meet the highly challenging demands of prospective customers.”

CHALLENGES AHEAD