Getting from Tiruchirappalli International Airport to the city

The new terminal

• The integrated passenger terminal opened in January 2024, and it is the single most important fact about this airport.
• 75,000 square metres over two storeys, against a much smaller old building.
• Annual capacity went from 1.5 million to over 4.5 million passengers, with 3,500 international passengers processed at peak hour and 60 check-in desks.
• The project was approved at about 9.51 billion rupees, with 5.64 billion for the terminal itself.
• Anything written before 2024 describes a different airport. That includes most of the English-language material still circulating.

Getting into Trichy

• About 5 km south of the city centre, off National Highway 336. That is a short ride, not a transfer.
• Prepaid taxi booths in the arrival hall run 24 hours, which fixes the fare and covers the night arrivals that the Gulf schedule produces.
• Ride-hailing apps operate, offering door to door service across the region.
• Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation runs both deluxe premium services and ordinary city buses from the terminal, connecting to the city's transit hubs and to the temples.

Why the international terminal

• Tiruchirappalli is not a large city, and it has an unusually large international operation.
• The routes are Sri Lanka, the Gulf and South-East Asia, reflecting Tamil Nadu's long-standing labour migration and the Colombo connection.
• The night schedule follows from that, which is why the 24 hour prepaid taxi booth matters more here than at a comparable domestic airport.

What is here

• The Rock Fort temple sits in the middle of the city, and Srirangam, one of the largest Hindu temple complexes in the world, is just north of it.
• Thanjavur, with the Brihadeeswarar temple, is about an hour and a half away, and Madurai about three.
• Trichy is the practical base for the Chola temple country, which is what most foreign visitors are here for.