NEW DELHI: Delhi airport expects to handle more than 24 million passengers annually in the next 1-2 years and is working on having more connectivity to the Asia Pacific region, including Australia and New Zealand, a top official said on Friday.
Currently, the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) handles around 22 million passengers annually and of the total, 5.5 million are connecting passenger traffic.
DIAL CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar said the airport is in discussions to enhance air connectivity to the Asia Pacific region, including Australia and New Zealand. Among other initiatives, a memorandum of understanding has been signed with the Auckland airport.
Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) operates IGIA in the national capital and has connections to 70 international destinations at present. “We are well advanced into becoming a global gateway,” Jaipuriar said at a briefing here.
Currently, the annual passenger traffic is around 22 million. Now, there are three operational terminals -- T1, T2 and T3. As part of the expansion plan, the terminal 1 of the will be completely opened from April 15, while Terminal 2 will be closed from next month due to mandatory refurbishment work.
The Terminal 3 serves 4.3 cores already. DIAL expects T1 to serve 4 crore passengers annually since the building has been expanded from 55,740 sq m to 2.6 lakh sq m. Along with the increased area, the authorities have also installed advanced equipment to enhance the passengers’ experience.
“The expansion and modernisation of T1 have been completed as part of the Phase 3A expansion project. The expanded world-class integrated T1 of Delhi Airport was dedicated to the nation in March last year,” DIAL said in a release.