Operations at Delhi airport’s T1 resume after 18-month closure

The first flight to land in Delhi after operations resumed at T1 was a SpiceJet Durgapur to Delhi flight (12.01 am), while the first departure took place at 1.49 am, when an IndiGo flight took off for Mumbai.

Flight operations at Delhi airport’s Terminal 1 (T1) resumed on Sunday after nearly 18 months, with IndiGo and SpiceJet shifting operations there. With this, all three terminals are now functional at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport.

Commercial operations of domestic and international flights were suspended from March 24, 2020. (Twitter/DIAL)

The first flight to land in Delhi after operations resumed at T1 was a SpiceJet Durgapur to Delhi flight (12.01 am), while the first departure took place at 1.49 am, when an IndiGo flight took off for Mumbai.

A Delhi airport official said till 6pm, there had been over 130 flight movements from the terminal — 69 departures and 64 arrivals.

The airport operator, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) on October 8 announced resumption of operations at T1, owing to an increase in passenger footfall in recent months.

According to figures, footfall touched nearly 110,000 passengers a day on weekends in October, while during weekdays, it was hovering between 85,000 and 100,000 passengers.

In addition, the international sector saw a footfall between 17,000 and 20,000 passengers at the start of the month, prompting authorities to reopen T1.

The arrangements at T1 include six kiosks for passengers for a web check-in before entering the terminal. Passengers are being encouraged to use e-boarding scanners for entry to security and frisking entry points, to avoid close contact or crowding.

“Passengers are being asked to maintain social-distancing inside,” a DIAL spokesperson said.

DIAL said passengers will be asked not to use seats with cross marks to ensure social distancing, and masks will be mandatory throughout the airport.

“Queue managers deployed at boarding and bussing gates will continuously monitor precautionary measures,” the DIAL spokesperson added.

Work on T1 is also currently ongoing simultaneously as part of the airport expansion plan, which will see its capacity double from 20 million passengers per annum to 40 million passengers per annum.

Work is expected to wrap up sometime between mid- and late-2022.

DIAL CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar said passengers were walking into a “safe and sanitised environment”, with the same safety measures put in place at T1 as were being followed at Terminals 2 and 3.

Commercial operations of domestic and international flights were suspended from March 24, 2020.

Terminal 3 was the first to reopen, on May 25, 2020, with Terminal 2 opening up in a calibrated manner from July 22, 2021 onwards.