Plan to decongest 1D hits hurdle as airline won’t shift

NEW DELHI: Relief for people flying out of IGI Airport’s

budget airline terminal

(1D), which is bursting at the seams, is unlikely to come anytime soon. The plan to

decongest

1D by shifting SpiceJet and GoAir to terminal 2 (T2), has hit a roadblock with the former firmly refusing to do so. According to the decongestion plan, only IndiGo—which accounts for almost 43% of domestic market share—would use terminal 1D for domestic departures and then it would be expanded over the next three years.

SpiceJet on Wednesday said it was yet to accept moving to the distant T2, which is closer to the international terminal or T3. “We are not shifting. The access to T2 is difficult and we have said that we cannot be selectively put to disadvantage,” said a top SpiceJet official.

The airport operator will now have to make some offer to SpiceJet and GoAir so they agree shifting their domestic departures to T2, thereby making way for 1D to be all-IndiGo. At present, passengers at 1D in peak departure hours are packed like sardines with very little space to sit in the security-hold area.

Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd

(DIAL) had earlier confirmed that T2, which recently underwent extensive renovation, will witness domestic operations from January 1 onwards. It also said T2 would be on a par with existing terminals of the airport in terms of facilities, comfort, security and infrastructure.

Though DIAL is targeting to throw its swanky T2 open for operations in less than a month, the reluctance of a few low-cost carriers to moving to the new terminal may delay the plan.

Earlier, despite being low-cost airline, Air Asia began operations from T3 in the summer of 2014. Later, when Vistara started operations in January 2015, it was also given space at T3.