Delhi airport's runway upgradation to hit airlines, 114 daily flights to be cancelled for 3 months

With the closure of a runway for upgradation works, the Delhi airport operator DIAL on Friday said 114 flights, accounting for 7.5 per cent of the total daily flights, will be cancelled for three months starting from 15 June, reported PTI.

According to the report, which quoted the DIAL, the upgradation works of the runway RW 10/28 will be carried out from 15 June to 15 September. It was postponed in May after congestion issues.

The report further mentioned that under the upgradation work, the Instrument Landing System (ILS) will be upgraded to make the runway CAT III compliant, allowing flight operations at low visibility conditions during the fog season.

On a daily basis, the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), the country's largest and busiest airport, handles around 1,450 flight movements. It has four runways – RW 09/27, RW 11R/29L, RW 11L/29R and RW 10/28 -- and two operational terminals – T1 and T3. T2 is currently closed for maintenance works.

Confirming the report, DIAL CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar on Friday said RW 10/28 is not going to be operational, effective June 15, for three months.

“...we want to upgrade that runway to mitigate any issues or problems that we were facing, especially during the fog season. So for RW 10/28, there are two upgrades that we are going to do.”

He added, "So, the (number of) flights which are going to be cancelled are about 114. If you look at it from the right perspective, we have got 1,450 operations (flight movements) in a day. Out of that, about 114 operations (flight movements) are going to be impacted, which is 7.5 per cent."

Flights impacted:

DIAL said that a total of 200 flights will be impacted during the June 15-September 15 period —114 will be cancelled, and the remaining 86 will be rescheduled from the peak to non-peak hours.

It added that though the runway will resume operations on 15 September, the ILS upgrade will be completed by 27 November.

In the meantime, Videh Kumar Jaipuriar said that DIAL have made efforts to ensure minimise disruptions during the closure of RW 28/10.

The RW 10/28 upgradation was planned in April-May 2025, and was closed for ILS upgradation on 8 April. However, the closure of the runway, easterly winds and congestion impacted flight operations.

With agency inputs.