Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport needs to add more capacity than it has planned for by 2025-2026, pointed a study which has estimated that the airport will see nearly 15% more passengers than the figures forecast under its master plan.
The study was carried out by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) on economic impact of IGI. It has forecast that the airport will see 96.63 million passengers by 2025-2026 against the estimate of 83.95 million passengers — “which is on the lower side” — for the same time period in the 2016 review of the master plan.
The share of domestic passengers of the total 96.63 million is projected to be 72.99 million, stated the NCAER.
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The report added that “it may be better to have a higher capacity in advance than to face a situation of capacity constraints after full development of the airport.”
The international airport in the national Capital currently has the capacity to handle 62 million passengers per annum.
In order to keep pace with increase in passenger traffic, the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) plans to carry out expansion works in three phases.
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Work under the first phase will begin from 2018 and 2021. For the second and the third phases, work will begin from 2021-2025 and 2026 onwards respectively.
Once expansion works conclude, the airport will reach its ultimate design capacity of 109-110 million passengers.
The report pointed out that the airport also needs to tailor its expansion work to cater to higher growth in passenger traffic given that the government has launched a low-cost flying scheme called UDAN, which is likely to result in further increase in demand.
The report was launched earlier this week by Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu and Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha.
GMR Airports executive director I. Prabhakara Rao and chairman of the GMR Group G.M. Rao were also present.