..And The Winner Is T2

After much dilly dallying and court deliberations, the much talked about Terminal 2 of Indira Gandhi International Airport started full operations on March 25, 2018 with IndiGo, SpiceJet and Go Air. JAGRITI MONGA takes a close look at what happened.

- Jagriti Monga

 Goodwill has prevailed! After a fourmonth long legal battle in the Delhi High Court, IndiGo and SpiceJet finally agreed to abide by Delhi International Airport Ltd's (DIAL) directive to partially shift their operations to T2 of Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) from March 25, 2018. Joining GoAir that relocated its entire operations to T2 last year, IndiGo has now agreed to relocate a chunk of its operations to the revamped terminal after losing the battle in court. A whopping 102 IndiGo flights have been shifted out, including flights to 10 sectors: Amritsar, Bagdogra, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Raipur, Srinagar, Udaipur, Vadodara and Vishakhapatnam. SpiceJet, on the other hand, has announced to move 22 of its flights from seven sectors: Ahmedabad, Cochin, Goa, Gorakhpur, Patna, Pune and Surat. However, both carriers will continue operations from T1 on three key routes: Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata, and will shift the rest to T2. With this announcement, IGIA’s T2 is all set to be fully operational.

Airlines vs Operator

Not that the new terminal is any less than T1 and T3 in terms of infrastructure. Designed to cater to passengers, the terminal maintains a look similar to its co-terminals to make it look like part of the ‘family’. Considering the growing demand for more capacity and to provide a hassle-free and safe journey to passengers during the expansion of T1, DIAL has refurbished T2 to increase the passenger area and create more room for traffic growth. With the partial shift of operations of the two airlines to T2, the passenger area for flyers will increase from the current available passenger area of 25,917 sq m at T1 to a combined 62,010 sq m: T2 has added an additional 36,093 sq m passenger area.