Travel east for pleasure (July 4, 2010 ) was a wonderful account of the new T3 airport terminal built by the GMR Group. The terminal is world class and puts India among the top airports in the world. As you have pointed out, it is among the countries with top five-six airports in terms of capacity of passengers. It has the most number of aerobridges for an airport of its size. Unlike most of the other competitor airports — Dubai, Hong Kong, Mexico etc — the airport was built on top of the existing one. This meant the GMR group had to deal with frightening logistics of ensuring the airport did not shut for even a single day. It is to their credit that they have achieved this feat in record time.
The group did this with the existing Airports Authority of India (AAI) staff, showing that, under a good management, even government employees can perform.
Credit also has to go to the travellers who stoically bore the inconvenience caused while the airport was being renovated and expanded — this included the airport’s roof flying off. Credit also goes to the government, which never lost faith in the group and extended all support to the developers.
Ashish Shah, New Delhi
