An Air India flight from Washington will be the first flight to operate from the swanky new terminal-3 (T3) at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here July 14.
But the AI-120 will be part of a drill to reaffirm the operational readiness of the terminal.
Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) authorities pushed back the operation date by 14 days to provide more time to all stakeholders to deal with any glitches, including setting up of airline offices, synchronising security procedures, baggage handling and the whole range of airport operations.
“Terminal process proving flights are meant to reaffirm the operational readiness and affording an opportunity to all stakeholders, including airlines, Air Traffic Control (ATC), immigration, customs to carry out their functions in the complete turnaround of an actual flight,” a Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) statement said.
The terminal “proving flights” come after extensive trial runs at the sixth largest passenger terminal in the world which was dedicated to the nation by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh July 3.
So on July 14, as part of the real-time drill, Jet Airways will fly the first international outbound flight to Dubai from the terminal, followed by first domestic flight from the national capital to Jaipur, Rajasthan on Air India.
The world’s largest jumbo jet Airbus A380 will also call upon T3 on July 15, the first proving flight to the terminal of A380 will be an Emirates flight from Dubai.
“DIAL had been carrying out extensive trial of various systems and facilities using mock passengers with dummy baggage. To date, airport stakeholders have been actively involved in 13 basic trials, 33 advanced trials and 10 Air taxi simulation trials which have enabled simulation involving 50,000 mock passengers and 80,000 bags,” said the statement.
