100 flights to be cancelled at Delhi Airport for runway closure
Around 100 flights will be cancelled daily at Delhi Airport from 15 June as the airport will shut one of its runways for upgradation.Runway 28/10 of the Capital's IGI Airport needs to be shut for its landing instruments to be upgraded. The first attempt to do this in April had to be aborted within four weeks after flight schedules descended into chaos, with the airport unable to handle its typical load of roughly 1,400 flights a day on three of its runways.The airport will upgrade the runway's Instrument Landing System (ILS) to CAT III B standards—an enhancement aimed at enabling operations during low-visibility conditions common in Delhi's foggy winters. The runway's lighting system also needed to be extended from 650 to 900 metre.Delhi is India's busiest airport with around 1,450 aircraft movements daily.However, impact on airfare will be limited, airline executives said as the period of mid-June has been chosen after extensive consultation due to this being a lean season due to monsoon.
'The Delhi airport handles 1,450 aircraft movements per day. Out of these, 114 daily movements will be cancelled during the runway upgrade,' Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, CEO of Delhi Airport said on Friday.'The number of cancellations will be in the range of 7-7.5 per cent, compared to the usual 3-4 per cent on a normal day...However, this time we have coordinated with airlines in advance and rescheduled flights accordingly, which will help reduce any cascading impact,' he said.It is important to upgrade the ILS as during the fog season, the arrival capacity of all runways comes as arriving aircraft have to be spaced out/ In case of westerly winds, arrivals drop from 42 per hour to 30 per hour during CAT III-B operations. But with easterly winds, arrivals currently fall sharply from 42 per hour to just 15 per hour. Once the upgrade is complete, that number will go up to 30 even with easterly winds, significantly improving efficiency.
DIAL to rework slot allocations and align with the revised arrival capacity. ' The process is meticulously done and lot of support has been given from regulators side and we believe the departure will be much less,' said Debashish Saha, vice president and delegated accountable manager, SpiceJet 'The objective was to ensure optimum use of available runway capacity while maintaining on-time performance,' he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
India Today
5 hours ago
- India Today
Delhi airport runway closure to affect 200 flights daily for three months
Delhi airport operator DIAL on Friday said 114 flights, accounting for 7.5 per cent of the total daily flights, will be cancelled for three months starting from June 15 due to the closure of a runway for upgradation upgradation works of the runway RW 10/28, that was postponed in May after congestion issues, will now be carried out from June 15 to September 15. The Instrument Landing System (ILS) will be upgraded to make the runway CAT III compliant, which will allow flight operations at low visibility conditions during the fog Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), the country's largest and busiest airport, handles around 1,450 flight movements daily. It has four runways -- RW 09/27, RW 11R/29L, RW 11L/29R and RW 10/28 -- and two operational terminals -- T1 and T3. T2 is currently closed for maintenance works. Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar on Friday said RW 10/28 is not going to be operational, effective June 15, for three months."...we want to upgrade that runway to mitigate any issues or problems that we were facing, especially during the fog season. So for RW 10/28, there are two upgrades that we are going to do," he said at a press conference to him, the average reduction in daily flights during the three-month period will be around 7.5 per cent, and passengers are being informed about the changes well in the (number of) flights which are going to be cancelled are about 114. If you look at it from the right perspective, we have got 1,450 operations (flight movements) in a day. Out of that, about 114 operations (flight movements) are going to be impacted, which is 7.5 per cent," he per DIAL, a total of 200 flights will be impacted -- 114 will be cancelled and the remaining 86 will be rescheduled from the peak to non-peak hours -- during the June 15-September 15 the runway will resume operations from September 15, the completion of the ILS upgrade will be done by November 27, just before the start of the fog season, Jaipuriar CEO emphasised that rescheduling and cancellation of flights are not going to have a major impact, especially since passengers are being informed in have been made to ensure a balanced approach to maintain operational stability and minimise disruptions during the closure of RW 28/10, he the backdrop of certain earlier instances of airlines and the airport operator having differences amid congestion woes, DIAL on Friday stressed that the slot adjustment process was carried out through close coordination among all the of various airlines were also present at the press the RW 10/28 upgradation was planned in April-May this year, and was closed for ILS upgradation on April 8. However, the closure of the runway, easterly winds and congestion impacted flight view of the same, the civil aviation ministry directed resumption of operations from RW 10/28 and postponement of runway works from June 15 to September 15. The revised upgradation schedule was also agreed to by the airlines, DIAL is majority owned by GMR Reel IN THIS STORY#Delhi
NDTV
7 hours ago
- NDTV
Delhi Airport To Cancel 114 Daily Flights For 3 Months Due To Runway Upgrade
New Delhi: Delhi airport operator DIAL on Friday said 114 flights, accounting for 7.5 per cent of the total daily flights, will be cancelled for three months starting from June 15 due to the closure of a runway for upgradation works. The upgradation works of the runway RW 10/28, that was postponed in May after congestion issues, will now be carried out from June 15 to September 15. The Instrument Landing System (ILS) will be upgraded to make the runway CAT III compliant, which will allow flight operations at low visibility conditions during the fog season. The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), the country's largest and busiest airport, handles around 1,450 flight movements daily. It has four runways -- RW 09/27, RW 11R/29L, RW 11L/29R and RW 10/28 -- and two operational terminals -- T1 and T3. T2 is currently closed for maintenance works. Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar on Friday said RW 10/28 is not going to be operational, effective June 15, for three months. "...we want to upgrade that runway to mitigate any issues or problems that we were facing, especially during the fog season. So for RW 10/28, there are two upgrades that we are going to do," he said at a press conference here. According to him, the average reduction in daily flights during the three-month period will be around 7.5 per cent, and passengers are being informed about the changes well in advance. "So, the (number of) flights which are going to be cancelled are about 114. If you look at it from the right perspective, we have got 1,450 operations (flight movements) in a day. Out of that, about 114 operations (flight movements) are going to be impacted, which is 7.5 per cent," he said. As per DIAL, a total of 200 flights will be impacted -- 114 will be cancelled and the remaining 86 will be rescheduled from the peak to non-peak hours -- during the June 15-September 15 period. While the runway will resume operations from September 15, the completion of the ILS upgrade will be done by November 27, just before the start of the fog season, Jaipuriar said. DIAL CEO emphasised that rescheduling and cancellation of flights are not going to have a major impact, especially since passengers are being informed in advance. Efforts have been made to ensure a balanced approach to maintain operational stability and minimise disruptions during the closure of RW 28/10, he added. Against the backdrop of certain earlier instances of airlines and the airport operator having differences amid congestion woes, DIAL on Friday stressed that the slot adjustment process was carried out through close coordination among all the stakeholders. Representatives of various airlines were also present at the press conference. Earlier, the RW 10/28 upgradation was planned in April-May this year, and was closed for ILS upgradation on April 8. However, the closure of the runway, easterly winds and congestion impacted flight operations. In view of the same, the civil aviation ministry directed resumption of operations from RW 10/28 and postponement of runway works from June 15 to September 15. The revised upgradation schedule was also agreed to by the airlines, DIAL said. DIAL is majority owned by GMR Airports.
Time of India
9 hours ago
- Time of India
Three-Month Runway Closure At IGI May Impact 200 Flights Daily
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. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Eid wishes , messages , and quotes !
