Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), the operator of Indira Gandhi International Airport in India, has begun the implementation of its 2016 Master Plan involving the expansion, renovation and unification of the entire airport.
The Master Plan was created in partnership with India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation and involves three phrases running from 2018-2021, 2021-2025 and 2026 onward. The first phase will involve the merger and expansion of terminals T1D and T1C to accommodate 40 million passengers per annum. This includes the modification of the airport apron to include modern facilities such as bridge mounted equipment (BME) and visual docking guidance systems (VDGS). The modified T1 will also boast 22 aerobridges.
Indana Prabhakara Rao, CEO, DIAL, said, “Passenger delight is of utmost importance to us. It is our constant endeavor to provide a very modern and world-class airport to our passengers. Keeping in view the organization’s vision, we have planned to increase the capacity of T1 and Terminal 3 (T3) and build a fourth runway in due course of time.
“As per the Master Plan, capacity of T1 will be increased from 20 million to 40 million and the capacity of T3 will be increased from 34 million to 45 million. The expansion will enable us to handle the steep increase in passenger traffic at the airport.
“In view of the robust growth in passenger traffic and upcoming airport expansion
works, DIAL has revamped Terminal 2 (T2). We have asked the airlines operating from T1 to shift operations to T2 from October 2017. T3 and T2 will cater for the growing traffic in the next three to four years by which time the T1 expansion project would be completed.”
The expansion works will be carried out alongside normal operations at T1. Certain areas of the terminal will operate at a lower capacity of 16 million passengers per annum. However, the overall capacity of the airport in view of T2 will be maintained at around 70 million passengers per annum.
Delhi Airport is the largest and the busiest airport in India. During FY 2016-17 it handled 57.7 million passengers and more than 8,57,000 tons of cargo. Delhi Airport has been ranked the 21st busiest airport in the world by ACI, achieving the highest growth, 21%, in calendar year 2016 of the world’s top 30 airports.