NEW DELHI: Flight operations will be impacted at Indira Gandhi International Airport when runway 10/28 is closed from June 15 to Sept 15 for upgradation. However, airport operator Delhi International Airport Limited clarified that only around 200 flights could be impacted daily. It has coordinated with airlines to reschedule 86 flights every day after cancelling 114 daily arrivals or departures during the period.
DIAL CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar said on Friday that the upgradation work was likely to take around three months but would eventually benefit flyers in the fog season when visibility is reduced considerably.
The runway is being closed to make it CAT-IIIB compliant to facilitate operations during dense fog in Delhi's winter. It was first closed for upgrades in April and May, but caused delays of hundreds of daily flights. Worsened by prevalence of easterly winds, which lowered the hourly landing capacity from 42 to 32 flights per hour, the runway had to be reopened to facilitate peak season flights.
Delhi airport operates with four runways: 27/9, 10/28, 29R/11L and 29L/11R. DIAL said when runway 10/28 remains closed, runway 29R/11L will handle departures, 29L/11R will manage arrivals and runway 27/9 will serve both arriving and departing flights. During westerly winds, the three remaining runways can accommodate 42 arrivals and 42 departures per hour. However, when easterly winds prevail, the departure capacity remains at 42 per hour while the arrival capacity reduces to 32 per hour.
Jaipuriar said Delhi airport handled around 1,450 flights daily, of which around 7.5% could be cancelled in the affected period. Normally, the airport sees an average of 3.5% cancellations. "It is just a little bit more than the normal average. It will not significantly disrupt the operations," Jaipuriar said. He said after consultation with all stakeholders, more flights have been shifted from peak hours to non-peak hours. "The difference is that the last time, we did not reschedule the flights, and there were delays due to the cascading effect," said Jaipuriar.
DIAL earlier said that during peak fog season, only 15 flights landed every hour on the only CAT-3B compliant runway, but this upgradation work would double that number.
DIAL said flights from big airports wouldn't face a major impact. For instance, the number of arrivals from Mumbai would only reduce from 56 to 54 per day and from Bengaluru, 38 to 36 daily. "The same flights that arrive at an airport fly back. Hence the same number of departures are impacted," Jaipuriar explained.
Jaipuriar revealed that every hour of fog disruption took over three subsequent hours for operations to become normal because of safety issues because the space between two flights had to be maintained at a specific level.
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