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Indira Gandhi International Airport

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Indira Gandhi International Airport

इन्दिरा गांधी अंतर्राष्ट्रीय विमानतल
Summary
Airport typePublic
OperatorDIAL (Delhi International Airport Limited)
ServesDelhi Metropolitan Area
LocationNew Delhi, India
Elevation AMSL777 ft / 237 m
Coordinates28°33′59″N 077°06′11″E / 28.56639°N 77.10306°E / 28.56639; 77.10306
Website[www.newdelhiairport.in]
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
10/28 12,500 3,810 Asphalt
09/27 9,229 2,813 Asphalt
Check-in area of domestic departure terminal 1A

Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport (Hindi: इन्दिरा गांधी अंतर्राष्ट्रीय विमानतल)(IATA: DEL, ICAO: VIDP), located in Delhi, is one of India's main domestic and international gateways. The airport has been named after former Prime minister, Indira Gandhi. It is the second busiest airport in South Asia. The airport is second busiest in India and as per the survey by AAI (Airports Authority of India), it is predicted to become the busiest airport in India by 2010. The airport served 23 million passengers in 2007 according to Fraport, a company part of the joint venture, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), that manages and owns the airport.

Structure

Earlier known as Palam Airport, it was renamed IGI airport with the inauguration of a new international terminal (Terminal 2), shaped like a trapezoid on 2 May 1986. The trapezoid terminal (international) has 9 jetbridges (Parking stands 41-50 and has had many complaints about shabbiness. Nevertheless, the airport is undergoing construction. The older Palam Airport, now known as Terminal 1, is exclusively used for domestic operations. Terminal 1 has further been divided into three separate terminals - 1A (for domestic flights of state owned Indian and now the UB group's Kingfisher airlines), 1B (for all other domestic airlines) and Domestic Arrival Terminal. There is also a separate Technical Area for the use of VVIP movements. Additionally there is a separate Hajj terminal for catering rush during Hajj.

The capacity of Terminal 1 is estimated to be 7.15 million passengers per annum (mppa). However, the actual throughput for 2005/06 was an estimated 10.4 million passengers. Including the international terminal (Terminal 2), the airport has a total capacity of 12.5 mppa whereas the total passenger traffic in 2006/07 was 16.5 million passengers per annum[1]. In 2007, there was a 6.5 million increase in the airport's passenger traffic, making the number of passengers 23 million that used the airport. The passenger count was handled by fraport, and authority of the airport. There is a free transfer shuttle between the terminals.

Delhi Airport has two non-parallel runways: the main runway 10/28 (12,500 ft / 3,810 m) and an auxiliary runway 09/27 (9,229 ft / 2,813 m). Runway 28 is one of the few runways in Asia and the only one in South Asia equipped with CAT III-B Instrument Landing System. In winter 2005 there were a record number of disruptions at Delhi airport due to fog/smog. Since then some domestic airlines have trained their pilots to operate under CAT-II conditions of a minimum 350 m (1,148 ft) visibility. On 31 March 2006, IGI became the first Indian airport to operate two runways simultaneously following a test run involving a SpiceJet plane landing and a Jet Airways plane taking off at the same time.

As there is an Indian Air Force Base (Hindon) in the flight path of Delhi airport it is necessary for civilian aircraft to make a 5 minute detour to avoid over-flying the military facility. In previous years the IAF used to close Delhi airport for use during annual celebrations to mark its "raising" day. Starting in 2006 such activities will be conducted at Hindon Air Force Base to reduce disruption to civilian air traffic at Delhi airport. This may be a fall-out of the privatisation of Delhi airport in early 2006.

Modernisation

Current Arrivals Section of International Terminal (not modernised)

Delhi Airport has been going through major upgrades since Fraport, Airport Authority of India, Eraman Malaysia, and GMR Infra. have been granted the contract to manage and build the airport over a 35 year time. Terminal 1A and 2 have all been renovated from new washrooms to new ceilings, to new departure area, to the latest security equipment. With this, the companies have also been constructing the brand new Terminal 3 at Indira Gandhi International Airport. This terminal will cater to both domestic and international passengers until the second phase of construction is done, which will include another new terminal which will cater to only international flights. This terminal will come in place of the old terminals already at the airport. The new Terminal 3 will be a two tier building, with the bottom floor being the arrivals area, and the top being a departures area. This terminal will have over 160 check in counters, 74 aerobridges, 30 parking bays, 72 immigration counters, 15 X-ray screening areas, for less waiting times, duty free shops, and much more[citation needed]. Over 90% of the passengers will use this terminal when completed. The airport will also have a new runway to cater more than 75 plus flights an hour, almost triple then what they do now[citation needed]. The runway will be more than 4400 metres long and one of Asia's longest. This new terminal should be done by the 2010 Commonwealth Games that are to be held in Delhi, and will be connected by a 6 lane motorway (National Highway 8), and the Delhi Metro. Terminal 3 will cater to more than 35,000,000 passengers a year.

Terminal 3 would form the first phase of the airport expansion in which a U shaped building would be developed in a modular manner. In 2010, all international and full service domestic carriers would operate from Terminal 3, while Terminal 1 would be developed as an exclusive terminal for low cost carriers. In subsequent stages, the low cost carriers would also move to the new terminal complex. Terminal 4 and 5 will be built later, but once done all International Flights will move to these two new terminals. And a new cargo handing building would be made. Also existing runways will be upgrades and a fourth parallel runway will be built. Once this is all done Delhi Airport will have over 500 check in counters, over 200 aerobridges, 150 immigration counters, restaurants, shops and much more and will be able to handle over 100 million passengers a year[citation needed].

Also being planned is an aeropolis that will include, restaurants, hotels, shops, temples, and much more. The plan is to make the airport into a "city to itself". The Government is investing 12,000 Crore in this project and investors investing over 24,000 Crore. The Airport Authority wants to see a business centre also constructed.

Incidents and accidents

Security hold area of domestic departure terminal 1A

Airlines and destinations

IGI Airport is the home of several Indian airlines including Air Sahara, Indian, SpiceJet, Alliance Air and IndiGo Airlines. Air India, and Jet Airways use IGI Airport as their second hub after Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. The airport is also a major base for various other Indian air carriers including Kingfisher Airlines, Go Air, Air Deccan and Air Sahara. Almost 100 domestic, international, and cargo airlines serve this airport.

Terminal 1A

  • Air India (Agartala, Agra, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bagdogra, Bangalore, Bhavnagar, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Dimapur, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Imphal, Indore, Jaipur, Jammu, Jamnagar, Jodhpur, Jorhat, Khajuraho, Kochi, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Leh, Lilabari, Lucknow, Mangalore, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Port Blair, Raipur, Rajkot, Shillong, Shrinagar, Silchar, Surat, Tezpur, Thiruvananthapuram, Udaipur, Vadodara, Varanasi, Visakhapatnam)
  • Air India Regional (Bangalore, Chennai, Goa, Kanpur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Vadodara, Visakhapatnam, Raipur, Bhopal)

Kingfisher Airlines (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Goa, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Hyderabad)

Terminal 1B

  • Deccan (Amritsar, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jabalpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Patna, Ranchi)
  • Go Air (Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kochi, Pune, Hyderabad)
  • IndiGo Airlines (Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Kochi, Kolkata, Guwahati, Imphal, Mumbai, Nagpur, Jaipur, Hyderabad)
  • Jagson Airlines (Dharamshala, Chandigarh, Pantnagar, Kullu, Shimla)
  • Jet Airways (Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bagdogra, Bangalore, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jammu, Jodhpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Leh, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Pune, Raipur, Srinagar, Thiruvanathapuram, Udaipur, Vadodara, Varanasi)
  • Jet Lite (Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Kolkata,Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Ranchi, Thiruvanathapuram, Varanasi)
  • Spice Jet (Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Srinagar, Jammu, Guwahati, Chennai, Coimbatore, Goa, Varanasi, Bangalore, Bhopal, Visakhapatnam)

Terminal 2

Delhi handles over 950 international scheduled arrivals and departures every week and almost 4,000 per month. International carriers operating scheduled services from the Indian capital are:

Cargo Terminal

International

Domestic

IGIA recently won an award (2007) rewarding their outstanding efforts in maintaining an organised, balanced cargo handling system.

Terminal 3

Currently under construction, and will be complete in 2010. From then on all of international traffic and full service Domestic airlines traffic will move to this massive, modern terminal. With a capacity to handle 34 million passengers a year, it will become one of the largest Airports in Asia.

Hajj Terminal

This terminal is exclusively used for the religious annual Islamic pilgrimage of Hajj. Most flights bound for the Middle East, such as flights operated by Emirates Airline or Saudi Arabian Airlines or national carrier Air India as well as the abundance of other Middle Eastern airlines serving Delhi operate through this terminal during the specific time of year. Upon Hajj's termination, the airlines return to the previous terminals they belonged to.

Previous Carriers

The following have suspended operations from New Delhi:


  • Air Canada (Toronto-Pearson, Zürich) Service was suspended (30/4/07) due to erratic passenger traffic, with demand dramatically at an uncontrollable peak during the winter but a lower passenger demand during the spring and summer. Air Canada could not afford a seasonal service to Delhi for just the winter months, so decided to discontinue Delhi on the route map, choosing to introduce new Chinese destinations instead.
  • United Airlines (London-Heathrow, Washington-Dulles) This service was suspended after the 11th September attacks and was finally cancelled on 1 October 2001.
  • Delta Air Lines (Atlanta, New York-JFK, Paris-Charles de Gaulle)
  • Paramount Airways (Chennai)-Domestic operation
  • Qantas (Sydney)
  • Other carriers that have discontinued operations are El Al (Tel Aviv), SAS Scandinavian Airlines System (Copenhagen), Myanmar Airways, Iraqi Airways, Air Ukraine and Tajik Air. Syrian Arab Airlines also had discontinued operations to New Delhi, however the service was recently revived and has been re-routed via Sharjah.
  • Swissair had to discontinue operations to Delhi due to the collapse of the airline. However the new international airline of Switzerland, Swiss International Airlines is beginning a daily service from Zürich to Delhi
  • Eurofly (Rome-Fiumicino) Service cut due to lack of success on route
  • Scandinavian Airlines served Delhi for roughly two years, however later axed the route for unkown purposes, perhaps giant losses of money. On the other hand,Scandinavian Airlines will revive the service due to the economic and aviation boom in India, and are confident this new four times weekly service (with the potential to increase) will be a cash cow[citation needed].

New Airlines and Routes

  • Air Arabia (March 31 2008) (Sharjah) [2] This will be Air Arabia's eleventh metro in India. Air Arabia serves the most Indian destinations out of any Middle Eastern carrier.
  • Iberia Airlines (Madrid) (begins January 2009) Plans to relaunch services to India in 2009 and plans on flying to Indira Gandhi International. With limited success with opening business in Mumbai Iberia cut off routes to South Asia. However in 2009, Iberia Airlines is planning on commencing a major expansion plan in Asia, adding routes Tokyo and Shanghai and in the second quarter Hong Kong, Beijing and New Delhi. [3]
  • Kenya Airways (Nairobi) [3] The route has already been approved along with many other new Indian destinations besides its only current destination of Mumbai in India. However the exact date of commencement cannot be determined until new aircraft are brought into the fleet since Kenya Airways cannot meet the capacity on the Nairobi-Delhi sector with their shortage of aircraft.
  • Kingfisher Airlines (Vancouver) (Date of commencement undecided) [4]
  • Scandinavian Airlines (Copenhagen) (resumes 27 October 2008)
  • US Airways (Philadelphia) US Airways has purchased new Airbus aircraft. They have talked about flying to India in the future.
  • Xiedu Airlines (Beijing) (planned)[5]

Fixed Base Operators (FBO)

Caterers

  • Ambassador's SkyChef
  • Chef Air
  • Taj-Sats
  • Oberoi Flight Services
Indian executive lounge in domestic departure terminal 1A

Fuelers

Ground Handlers

  • Air India Corporation
  • Indian
  • GlobeGround India
  • Airworks India
  • Cambata Aviation
  • Livewel Aviation Services Pvt Ltd.
  • Concord Aviation Pvt Ltd.

References

  1. ^ IGI Airport tops world in growth -Delhi-Cities-The Times of India
  2. ^ Aviation Safety Network retrieved 18 November 2006
  3. ^ Kenya Airways interested to fly to Chennai
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