Delhi: IGI Airport to slow down as it shuts runway for 3 months
Runway 28/10 of Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport will be closed for maintenance work from Sunday for three months till September 15, during which more than 200 flights will be affected daily, officials aware of the matter said.
The closure is bound to affect passenger movement as 114 flights will be cancelled and another 86 rescheduled on a daily basis, according to airport operator Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL).
One of the four runways at the Delhi airport, Runway 28/10 is set to undergo upgradation work to make it CAT-IIIB compliant for the upcoming fog season.
The flight management plan, developed after detailed deliberations with airlines and other stakeholders, aims to prevent a repeat of the widespread chaos that erupted in April when the same runway maintenance work was attempted without adequate coordination. However, in the coming days, some additional flights may be impacted due to the changing airspace situation amid the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel.
Officials, meanwhile, said that they are confident about the new plan.
'We are better prepared now for this exercise and detailed deliberations and stakeholder consultations were held in the last few weeks,' DIAL chief executive officer Videh Kumar Jaipuriar earlier said.
CAT III refers to an Instrument Landing System (ILS) which allows flights to land in adverse weather conditions like fog, snow, or rain.
'For every one hour where flights are delayed, it takes three hours for the flight schedule to become normal, as there is a cascading effect on the remaining schedule,' Jaipuriar had earlier said, highlighting why proactive cancellations are necessary this time.
The Delhi airport typically handles close to 1,450 flights daily, meaning around 7.8% of all flights will be cancelled on a daily basis—marginally above the typical 3-4% daily flight cancellations.
The plan involves shifting more flights from peak hours to non-peak hours to reduce possible impact during the closure period, officials explained. Officials aware of the matter said that IndiGo will be cancelling 33 daily flights, while Air India will have to cancel 25 flights daily.
The first attempt to upgrade runway 28/10 in April had to be aborted within four weeks after flight schedules descended into chaos. The airport became unable to handle its daily load of flights, a situation made worse due to unseasonably high spells of easterly winds, which reduced the hourly arrival rate from 42 flights per hour to 32 flights per hour.
Operations on runway 28/10 resumed on May 6, almost a month after it shut down, following directions from the ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) citing passenger inconvenience. The ministry had directed that upgradation work resume in June with proper planning.
Delhi airport operates four runways: 27/9, 28/10, 29R/11L and 29L/11R. Following closure of 28/10, runway 29R/11L will handle departures, 29L/11R will handle all arrivals, and runway 27/9 will be hybrid, handling both arrivals and departures.
If westerly winds prevail, the three operational runways will handle 42 arrivals and 42 departures each per hour. However, in case of easterly winds—which caused major problems in April—they will be able to handle 42 departures but only 32 arrivals.
The upgradation works will coincide with the monsoon season, when wind patterns can vary and force the airport into orienting operations for the easterly winds scenario.
DIAL said flights from major airports will not be impacted significantly, with only a 4-8% reduction in daily flights. For Mumbai, arrivals will decrease from 56 to 54; for Kolkata, from 22 to 21; for Ahmedabad, from 21 to 19; for Bengaluru, from 38 to 36; for Chennai, from 20 to 19; and for Patna, from 13 to 12.
DIAL said a slot adjustment plan was shared with the airlines for feedback and was later approved to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
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