The Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, managed by the private company DIAL, has completed refurbishing work on the British-era runway built during World War II. Runway 09/27 was the first runway to be built at the Delhi’s airport for military purposes and is now being transformed into a modern runway for commercial purposes. As soon as pre-pandemic traffic returns to Delhi Airport, the newly built runway will have a design life of 20 years and will be able to handle the increased air traffic movements (ATMs).
With three terminals, Delhi International Airport is India’s busiest airport at both the domestic and international levels. With the updated runway and latest equipment, the airport complies with Category-I (CAT-I) Instrument Landing System (ILS), which makes landing easier even in low visibility conditions as well. DIAL data indicates the British constructed the 2,816-metre-long and 60-metre-wide runway before Independence and used it during World War II.
Deputy Managing Director, GMR Group, I Prabhakar Rao said, ‘DIAL has successfully completed the rehabilitation work of Runway 09/27 and its taxiways. The British-era runway was rebuilt and made operational for commercial operations as part of DIAL’s effort to enhance the infrastructure and passenger experience at Delhi Airport to make it future-ready’. In the course of rebuilding the airport’s runways and taxiways, LED systems have been installed for greater efficiency and reliability.
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Around 850 lights were converted to LEDs. Following completion of the runway renovation, DIAL expects the airport’s passenger handling capacity to increase to 100 million passengers per year (MPPA) and the airside capacity to reach 140 MPPA. On the other hand, Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport’s runway 09/27, which lies on the northern side, has a total of nine taxiways; six are connecting taxiways, and three are rapid exit taxiways (RETs).
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