T3 shift: Airlines' winter schedule upset

With another delay in shifting of domestic airlines to Terminal 3, airlines might have to change their winter schedules. Faizan Haider reports.

With another delay in shifting of domestic airlines to Terminal 3, airlines might have to change their winter schedules.

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The winter schedule did not have much difference between two flights, keeping in mind the integrated terminal. But that will have to change now. The schedule was supposed to be implemented from October 31 as the terminal shift date was October 30.

"The new timings was decided in a way that there was not much difference between two flights. The logic behind this was integrated terminal. We use the same aircraft for several destinations but at IGI Airport the time got wasted by sending aircraft from the domestic to international terminal. We were hoping to save that time after shifting to T3," said an Air India official on the condition of anonymity.

Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines and their low cost arms were scheduled will now shift to T3 on November 14.

The shifting is being delayed due to connectivity problem as a new link road and Metro is not ready yet.

"Suppose a plane is coming from US and de-boarding the passengers at international terminal. If the aircraft's next destination is Lucknow, it has to travel from T3 to T1 so that passenger can board from domestic terminal," said an airport source who doesn't wish to be identified. Under normal circumstances, airlines used to keep two-hour time difference between two connecting flights, but after the shift in terminal was announced, they reduced it to 30 minutes .

"This time would have been saved at T3 as the boarding was supposed to be through aerobridges," the Air India official added.

"As far as winter schedule is concerned, we are thinking about it," said a Kingfisher official.

11 flights at T3

Meanwhile, according to a decision taken on Saturday, 11 Air India flights will start arriving at T3 from Sunday. The decision was taken to maintain the time difference between two flights as the airline had already announced the winter schedule, hoping to operate from T3.