Don't scrap 1D

With passenger growth, increase Delhi airport's capacity

The Airports Authority of India, or AAI, is reported to have mooted the idea of shutting down the existing 1D terminal of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi and shifting all domestic flights to Terminal-3 in the next three months. The apparent rationale of this idea is to put an end to the hardships that passengers face at the 1D terminal, whose capacity of 12 million passengers a year is proving to be inadequate. It struggles to handle passengers of three budget airlines that account for over 55 per cent of the country's total number of air travellers. Another reason cited in favour of the idea is that Delhi International Airport Private Limited or DIAL, in which state-owned AAI has a 26 per cent stake, has violated the development plan that envisaged the shutting down of Terminal 1D and building two or three more terminals in its place. DIAL, however, has argued that shifting all domestic flights to Terminal-3 is not feasible and in any case it has now proposed to expand Terminal-1D to handle 30 million passengers and then add a new terminal adjacent to it.

Quite apart from the unseemly tussle between AAI and DIAL, which can do no good to air travellers using the airport in Delhi, the idea of shutting down a functioning terminal and shifting all domestic flights to Terminal-3 is seriously flawed and defies all logic and practicality. With projections of 30 per cent growth in domestic air travel, shutting down a running terminal is hardly a solution. Taken together, the current annual capacity of the two terminals in Delhi is 46 million passengers - 34 million in Terminal-3 and 12 million in Terminal-1D. Last year, Delhi airport handled 41 million passengers. Assuming a growth rate of eight per cent, the two terminals in Delhi have already reached close to a hundred per cent capacity utilisation level. Passengers travelling through Terminal 1D are already facing the adverse consequences of the worsening capacity constraint in the form of long queues at different stages before boarding the flight, lack of seats and space for travellers and even in the deployment of adequate staff to meet passenger needs. The need of the hour is to not shut down an existing terminal, but to take steps that allow capacity to grow without any disruption and improve the experience of an air traveller inside the airport, a proposal that DIAL has made.

It is time the airport regulator took stock of the current situation in airports in Delhi and indeed in other major airports in the country. It should benchmark the quality of service and facilities offered in the two airport terminals in Delhi against international norms. Efforts should be made to explore if the old international terminal, which is lying closed and can perhaps handle another six million passengers, should be reopened for use by some airlines. If some airlines have to be shifted from Terminal 1D to Terminal-3, then the regulator must intervene and make sure that the airport charges that airlines have to pay are reasonable. At present, most airlines complain about the exorbitant fees they pay for using the facilities in Terminal-3 and this is one of the reasons why many airlines are unwilling to move - or to support the proposed privatisation of other airports such as those in Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. And if DIAL is planning to augment capacity of its terminals, the AAI and the government should endorse it so that it is built before the current shortage gets worse.