It’s wingspan vs timespan

The dreaded air traffic congestion is back to haunt Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA). Though dense fog is yet to set in at the airport, flight delays and air traffic congestion have become a routine affair at IGIA. This, when the airport has three functioning runways.

The dreaded air traffic congestion is back to haunt Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA).

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Though dense fog is yet to set in at the airport, flight delays and air traffic congestion have become a routine affair at IGIA. This, when the airport has three functioning runways.

Planes hovering above the airport and delays of about 45 minutes due to congestion were considered normal at the airport till 2007. Though things were expected to improve and they did for some time, congestion is again becoming a part of life at the airport.

“Flights taking off from Delhi usually get delayed and it has a cascading effect on flight schedules at many other airports,” said Sudhakar Reddy, president of Air Passengers Association of India (APAI), a non-profit organisation.

“Passengers are really unhappy with the delays.”

The new runway has increased the flight handling capacity of the airport but the number of flight movements has increased, too. Till four years ago, the airport was handling 450 flight movements (landing and take off) per day but the number is touching 700-720 now — making Delhi the country’s busiest airport.

The problem is not the increase in number of flights but how the slots are distributed over the day. The bulk of passengers comprise those making business trips, people who prefer to leave the city early in the morning and come back in the evening.

“There is bunching of flights during peak hours, departures in the morning and arrivals in the evening. We can handle eight flights in 15 minutes but with 20 flights trying to depart or land at the same time, there is congestion and flights get lined up in a sequence,” he said.

“Flights getting delayed by 15 to 30 minutes in the peak hours is routine at IGIA,” said a senior official of a full cost carrier, who didn't wish to be identified.

“There are a number of flights to airports like Mumbai in the morning within minutes and all airlines face delays from 6 am to 9 am,” he said. “There are similar problems from 5 pm to 8 pm.”