"We plan to take the passenger handling capacity of the Delhi airport to 100 million per annum by 2026. For this, we have developed our master plan," DIAL spokesperson Arun Arora said. "We plan to take the passenger handling capacity of the Delhi airport to 100 million per annum by 2026. For this, we have developed our master plan," DIAL spokesperson Arun Arora said. The expansion would be done in phases. The third terminal would be set up by 2010 to take the passenger handling capacity to 60 million per annum. After that, a new terminal would be added every five years until 2025. |
Terminal 3 will have 55 aerobridges and 30 remote parking bays for passenger embarkation and disembarkation. Six of these aerobridges would be compatible for the Airbus A380s. "The money to be invested would be raised through debt and equity in the ratio 1.25:1," said Arora.
The fourth runway would be constructed by 2021 to handle the increase in passenger and air traffic. DIAL plans to commission the third runway, amongst the longest in Asia, in the next 4-5 months. The runway will be capable of handling A380-sized aircrafts.
The company also plans to straighten the existing 9-27 runway or the 'secondary runway'. "The two existing runways are converging. We would straighten the 9-27 runway so that we have two sets of parallel runways by 2021," said Arora.
So far, DIAL has announced an investment of Rs 8,900 crore for modernising and upgrading the airport in the first phase.
Last year, the company announced it had secured loans to the tune of Rs 4,940 crore for the first phase. It had also said that the financing of Rs 8,900 crore would be done through debt and equity in the ratio 1.25:1.
Currently, the airport handles 23 million passengers which is likely to touch 29 million by the end of this fiscal.
DIAL is a consortium of the GMR Group, Airports Authority of India (AAI), Fraport and Eraman Malaysia and India Development Fund (an IDF AMC managed fund). According to the agreement by the companies, about 45.99 per cent of the revenues of the Delhi airport goes to the AAI.
Asked if DIAL would go ahead with its plans to add three more terminals after the first phase even if Greater Noida gets an international airport, Arora said: "We are going according to our master plan which envisages construction of all those terminals."
GMR, the leading member of DIAL, had expressed its unhappiness over construction of the proposed airport in Greater Noida, saying the Delhi airport will take care of the long-term traffic requirement of the area, and hence timing of building another airport in the vicinity was not appropriate.
GMR Group has 50.1 per cent stake in DIAL while the AAI has 26 per cent. Fraport and Eraman Malaysia have 10 per cent ownership each while IDF has 3.9 per cent.
GMR Group also has 63 per cent stake in GHIAL (GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd), the company that has developed the greenfield airport in Shamsabad, Hyderabad.
