More articles by

Soumik Dey
Soumik Dey

NEW DELHI

Delhi airport to double its capacity to carry 40 million passengers by 2021

Delhi IGI airport (File) Indira Gandhi International Airport | AFP

Delhi airport may be at par with Singapore's Changi International Airport in terms of service. Now, it will also match the latter's infrastructure and visual appeal, said I. Prabhakara Rao, CEO, Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), on Tuesday.

“We are redoing Terminal 1 of Delhi airport considering growth in low cost carrier (LCC) traffic,” said Rao, unveiling the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) master plan, for doubling capacity of Delhi's airports to service 40 million flyers by 2021.

“The phase 3A involves redoing the two terminal buildings for domestic departures and arrivals,” said Rao. Beyond 2021, the phase 3B (2021-25) and Phase 4 (2026) onwards are part of the master plan.

Four factors have changed since the original master plan of Delhi airport was adopted in 2006. These are growth of the LCC sector (25 per cent anticipated till 2016 vis-a-vis 55 per cent of passengers), fleet mix changes (adoption of ATRs and smaller engine aircrafts for regional routes), growth of transfer traffic and cargo, which shifted to 85 per cent cargo being carried by passenger liners alone presently.

In later phases of development, a new Terminal-4 is expected to come up alongside Terminal-3. Meanwhile, for better servicing of growing number of fleets by airliners, the entire apron and airside of the airport will be redone.

A new state-of-art ATC tower, a new fourth runway, parallel to present 11/29 would be built till 2021. During his presentation, Rao showed double-laned taxiways for airplanes on bridges over traffic ways as part of the plan envisaged for Delhi airport's expansion.

“In many ways, we are on par with Changi International airport. Now, we will also match them in visual appeal,” said Rao.

Among other things, the area of Delhi airport will grow 1.5 times to 20,000sqmt from a present 800sqmt. Parking facility for airplanes would almost double along with more streamlines passenger facilities, promises the airport operator.

The Delhi Metro's plan to connect its violet line with the domestic airport from October 2017 will also enable the airport with a much-awaited metro service, and better approach and departure roads from the terminals.

As a short-term pain, Rao indicated, that airlines have been told to shift one-third of their all domestic flight operations to the revamped Terminal-2 (presently used as Haj and Cargo terminal). “Airlines have agreed to do so for the winter schedule (October 1-Jan 31),” said Rao, indicating that earlier protests of a red and a blue low cost airlines, which had made it difficult for GMR to go ahead with its master plan expansion, had come to an end, even if temporarily.

On the question of what routes airlines have been asked to operate from Terminal-2, Rao said, “that choice is left with the airlines but they must let us know by end of this month.” While most regulatory nods are in place, an approval on budget is awaited still from the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA).

Once approved, construction work on revamping and taking down the old terminal building, a post-independence era construction and design, at Palam airport will begin from March 2018 into a modern looking Y-shaped domestic terminal building at the capital soon, Rao said. 

This browser settings will not support to add bookmarks programmatically. Please press Ctrl+D or change settings to bookmark this page.
Topics : #Delhi

Related Reading