Tiruchi airport gets Runway Guard Lights for better safety of aircraft operations

The Tiruchi International Airport has been equipped with Runway Guard Lights (RGL) as a measure to improve safety of aircraft operations in all weather conditions especially in low visibility.

Tiruchi was one of the airports identified by the Airports Authority of India in the Southern region for the installation of the RGL. The facility has been provided to prevent unintentional incursion into the active runway. The RGL has been installed at four taxiways which were identified for this facility. It consists of two pairs of yellow lights with one pair each on either side of the taxiway and could be operated independently.

The RGL housing is made out of aluminium alloys and the whole unit is painted in powder coated aviation yellow colour. Anti-glare visors have been provided to ensure visibility during the day and the light fixture is mounted on frangible coupling. The RGL would help pilots to clearly see the intersection of the runway and taxiway which would improve safety during take off and landing. 

The RGL facility would improve safety of aircraft operations in all weather conditions especially in low visibility, said S.S. Raju, Airport Director, Tiruchi. Approval had been obtained from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation for putting in place the facility at a cost of about ₹33 lakh and it was operationalised recently, he added. 

The Tiruchi airport has a single runway of 2,423 metres long and handles Airbus 300 / 321/ 320 and B-737 type aircraft.  It is the second airport in Tamil Nadu to handle more overseas flights after Chennai. The number of international flights operated to and from this airport is more as compared to domestic services. Flights are operated to overseas destinations such as Colombo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Sharjah, and Dubai by different carriers. 

The airport handled a little over 13.98 lakh international passengers during the 2024-25 financial year. This figure was slightly higher than the one recorded in 2023-24 fiscal when the airport handled 13.05 lakh overseas passengers.