Delhi International Airport Limited CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar has said that the Delhi airport’s passenger traffic will be crossing pre-pandemic levels at over 70 million in the financial year 2024. Terminal 1 will see its passenger handling capacity surge by 23 million by the end of February 2024.
Terminal 2 (T2) will be converted into an international terminal for a short term, Jaipuriar said. As of now, T2 is meant for domestic flights and has a passenger handling capacity of 15 million.
The CEO told PTI that there has been a good revival of passenger traffic. Presently, Delhi airport has three terminals- T1, T2 and T3, in line with the traffic trends. The airport operator will take a call on having a fourth terminal. T3 is the only terminal which handles international operations.
Delhi airport’s passenger traffic
The Indira Gandhi International Airport is India’s largest airport and is operated by the Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL).
Talking about exceeding pre-pandemic passenger traffic this financial year, Jaipuriar said, “We had a maximum of 69.3 million passengers during pre-Covid. Last (financial) year, we did 65.3 million and this financial year, we will cross 70 million.”
Out of the 70 million passengers, 52 million will be domestic while around 18 million passengers will be international.
Earlier in 2016, a master plan had been devised for the airport which will be revisited by DIAL and the current capacity levels are based on that plan.
A fourth terminal for Delhi Airport?
The 2016 plan calls for the development of a fourth terminal (T4) with a capacity of around 40 million. The plan talks about T4 being fully domestic, T3 getting converted fully into international and T1 being completely domestic, Jaipuriar said.
The master plan is talking about T4 being fully domestic, T3 getting converted fully into international and T1 being completely domestic, he noted.
He added that T2, instead of being a domestic terminal, will be converted into an international one for a short while. DIAL is yet to have stakeholders’ consultations on the matter.
“If everything gets finalised…by June-July next year, we should be able to convert T2 into international (terminal),” he added. Post the conversion, T2’s passenger handling capacity will come down into the region of 7-9 million since international operations require more processing area.
As for T1, its expansion is expected to be completed by February 2024. Once that is done, its passenger handling capacity will increase from 17 million to 40 million.
“Then, we will have an overall domestic capacity of 40 million in T1 and 25 million in T3. (Currently), the domestic capacity at T2 is 15 million,” he said and added that the international passenger handling capacity at T3 is around 20 million.
From the projections, he said, “we are very comfortable with domestic capacity but we are going to be tight in two years from now (when it comes to) international capacity”.
(With PTI inputs)