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T3’s 3 Ts: Traffic, trauma & take-off
From next month, before you reach the airport and enjoy the world-class experience, you will have to face your share of chaos.
From next month, before you reach the airport and enjoy the world-class experience, you will have to face your share of chaos.
From July, IGI Airport’s brand new Terminal 3 (T3), which will cater to all international flights, will become operational. The terminal will also cater to all domestic flights, bringing with it a huge volume of vehicular traffic.
International flights will take off from T3 from July 14 and domestic flights from July 30.
At present, nearly 2 lakh people travel to and from the IGI airport daily. More than 95,000 vehicles make up the daily traffic to and from the airport. This traffic, however, is divided between the international and domestic terminals located diametrically opposite to each other.
Once T3 opens, only three domestic budget carriers will operate from the old terminal with nearly 90 per cent of the flights operating from T3.
T3 is located next to Terminal 2—the existing international terminal—and there’s only one access point to it from National Highway 8. This means the busy Mahipalpur-NH8 intersection will become a traffic bottleneck from July.
“With only one entry and exit point on NH8, which already witnesses massive jams, the situation could get worse,” said a senior airport official. “Now, only international flight passengers take the road and that, too, during the wee hours. Once T3 opens, domestic passenger will keep arriving through the day.”
The new terminal was expected to get a separate link road from Dwarka roundabout to ease the pressure on NH8. A large section of the road will pass under Runway 28 and open just near T3.
The link road was to open in July, coinciding with the opening of T3 but work on it is still going on. The road is being constructed by the DDA and has been sub-contracted to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) because of their expertise in tunnels.
A top DMRC official, who didn’t wish to be named, said the road will not be completed before September.
The airport was expected to get five new access routes before the Commonwealth Games in October but most of them have not yet taken off.
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