Third runway at IGI Airport becomes operational

{image-IGI Airport_25092008.jpg news.oneindia.in}New Delhi, Sep 25: The third runway of the Indira Gandhi Airport became operational from on Thursday, Sep 25 with the landing of a British Airways plane.

A Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) spokesperson said that the third runway became operational with the landing of a British Airways plane from Heathrow at 6.20 am. The decision in this regard was taken at a meeting of the Ministry of Civil Aviation with all stakeholders, chaired by Joint Secretary, K N Srivastava on Wednesday, Sep 24. The runway, 4,430-metres long and 75-metres wide, can handle wide-bodied aircraft like the Airbus 380 or the Antonov 226.

The other decision taken at the meeting is that all arrivals would be handled at runway 28-10 and all departures from the new runway (29-11). Another decision is that airlines would take into consideration aircraft turn-around time of one hour in place of the present 45 minutes to take care of additional taxiing time involved. They will also file their winter schedule for approval of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), accordingly next month.

DIAL will take adequate measures to prevent any incident of bird-hit particularly in respect of the third runway. With the commissioning of the third 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

The Ministry decided that 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.

ANI