The Indian Air Force has agreed to allow the use of its Hindon airbase for civilian flights under the government’s regional connectivity scheme (RCS), Civil Aviation Secretary R.N Choubey said on Wednesday.
The move will help take the load off Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport, which is facing slot constraints. The Hindon airbase will serve as “second” airport in the NCR for flights operating under the RCS.
High demand
“In the second round of bidding for RCS, we expect a significant demand for slots for Delhi airport. We recognise that it will be difficult for DIAL to provide all the slots and we have pre-emptively taken up the matter with the IAF, which has gone out of the way to cooperate with us and make their airbase available to us,” Mr. Choubey told reporters at an ASSOCHAM event on Wednesday.
The operation of civil aircraft from the Ghaziabad-based airbase, on the outskirts of Delhi, are likely to start during the winter schedule which comes into effect from the last Sunday of October.
The government, however, needs to bring on board the IGI airport operator, the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), in order to seek relaxation of the rule which disallows commercial operations of flights from a second airport within 150 kms of an existing one.
