Chennai: Flights to carry 1,500kg extra fuel to meet monsoon skies

CHENNAI: With the northeast monsoon known to bring in heavy rain and strong wind, pilots have started to carry more fuel to fly down to Chennai airport to manage diversions when the weather is bad.
Airlines have started to allow pilots to carry fuel for diversion to a faraway airport and also carry additional fuel to hold for 10 to 20 minutes over the city. This means around 1,500kg of extra aviation turbine fuel.
Airports far off from a weather system are usually selected as alternative airports for a destination during the northeast monsoon, a pilot said. “For Chennai, airports in Kochi, Mangaluru or Trichy will be selected as alternatives instead of Bengaluru or Tirupati, which may have the same weather pattern as Chennai.”