Third runway at IGI Airport to be operational tomorrow

New Delhi, Sep 24 (UNI) The third runway of the Indira Gandhi Airport, Delhi will become operational from 1800 hrs tomorrow.

The first flight to land at the airport will be an Air India Flight, scheduled at 1815 hrs.

This was decided at a meeting of the Civil Aviation Ministry with all stakeholders today.

The other decisions taken at the meeting are: -- For optimal use of facilities and in the larger interest of the passengers, as far as possible all arrivals would be handled at runway 28-10 and all departures from the new runway.

-- Airlines would take into consideration aircraft turn-around time of one hour in place of present 45 minutes to take care of additional taxiing time involved. They will also file their Winter Schedule for approval of DGCA, accordingly next month.

-- DIAL would take adequate measures to prevent any incident of bird-hit particularly in respect of the 3rd runway.

-- With the commissioning of the 3rd runway, there should be no air congestion at IGI Airport. All the stake-holders viz.

DIAL, AAI and airlines would fully cooperate with each other to accomplish it -- DIAL would ensure that the CAT-3B facilities at the runway are commissioned by November 2008, well before the advent of fog season. AAI would ensure that the Surface Movement Radar facilities for the 3rd runway are also commissioned by that time.

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