Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport will temporarily shut down one of its runways for three months to carry out critical upgrades, leading to significant disruptions in flight operations.
As reported by Hindustan Times earlier, the runway 28/10 will be shut for shut down for upgrades.
Providing latest update on the same, Delhi Airport CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar on Friday said that the runway shutdown could be for three months, according to news agency ANI.
"Out of the four runways that the Delhi airport has, there is one runway 10/28 that we are planning to shut down for three months because there are upgrades that are required," Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar told the news agency.
How could flight ops be hit at Dehi airport soon?
Due to the activity, about 100 flights are going to be affected overall, of which over 43 flights are going to be rescheduled.
"The new schedule has already been published, and 57 departure flights are going to be cancelled. If you put it in the perspective of the percentage, then overall, for Delhi airport, about seven per cent of the Delhi airport capacity flights will be cancelled," said Jaipuriar.
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{{/usCountry}}"We also ensure that the cancellations are not something that is impacting in a big way. So, in most of the sectors where we had multiple connectivity, their 8-9 per cent of the connectivity was reduced so that overall that sector does not get impacted badly," he added.
The slashing of services comes after a similar attempt in April led to widespread chaos in flight schedules at the country’s busiest airport, forcing authorities to abandon the work, as reported by Hindustan Times.
The April crisis exposed critical coordination gaps in India’s aviation ecosystem. Despite being informed well in advance about the runway closure, airlines had not reduced their flight operations, triggering delays that cascaded throughout the country.
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The work, which began on April 8, was stopped and the runway reopened on May 5 after Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu intervened following widespread passenger complaints and a parliamentary standing committee expressed concerns over the disruptions.