Handling commercial flights since 1962, Delhi’s Palam Airport has over the decades come a long way to become India’s busiest and make it to world’s top 10 hubs. It has been growing its wings through developments like getting T2 in 1986 that gave it the current name of IGI Airport. In 2005, the then UPA govt decided to expand and modernise the existing airports in Delhi and Mumbai on PPP model by giving them to private players for 30 years in 2006 and conditionally allowing another second 30-year concession period. The GMR Group this month completed 20 years of its first concession period. GMR Airports chairman GBS Raju spoke to TOI on the way ahead. What are your priorities now for the Delhi airport?■ Delhi International Airport Ltd has created a capacity for handling 10.5 crore passengers per annum between IGIA’s three terminals, four runways and infra to support the same. Last fiscal year (FY 26), we handled close to 7.9 crore passengers. So, the capacity is there for the next five to six years. The airside capacity has been optimised and we are capable of handling 1,700 aircraft movement per day. This can increase to 2,000+ with technology upgradation and training of air traffic controllers for which we are working very closely with Airports Authority of India.Kiran Kumar Grandhi (Raju’s brother) and Srinivas Bommidala (Raju’s brother in law) who headed the airport vertical before me laid a very strong foundation with their focus on areas like connectivity, new businesses and city side development. Today, all three terminals have multimodal city side access. We are working closely with govt on various initiatives to further enhance cityside connectivity.The biggest focus now is on doing an automated people mover, which will be completed in 30 months. The alignment and designing are done. We are going to issue the bid shortly. A call on the timing of the new Pier E at T3 will be taken in discussion with airlines.What has been the impact of the US-Iran war on air traffic? What makes you confident for incurring the capex despite the dip in air travel being seen currently?■ There will be a short term impact. But in the medium to long term, we are very bullish on the prospects of the Indian economy as a whole and aviation. Before the West Asia crisis, the highest traffic in a day was 2.5 lakh passengers while the average was 2.2 lakh. That is what we are doing today also. Traffic to the Middle East is impacted. But the majority of that was transfer traffic in nature and not origindestination. Some foreign airlines have added flightsfor a few months.Today, we are a $3.9 trillion economy with close to $3,000 per capita income. Aviation is underpenetrated here right now compared to many other countries. In the long term, the growth here will be huge as the GDP rises to $5 trillion, $7 trillion and so on. This West Asia issue, in my view, is a short term one. Like how we had the pain during Covid and then post that we became the country that saw the fastest rebound in air travel. Our airlines are also getting stronger.What impact do you see of the Noida airport opening next month on IGIA footfalls?■ The Noida airport will have minimal impact on us. Aeronautical charges at the Delhi airport are competitive and lower vis-à-vis the tariff of the Noida airport. Given its connectivity, IGIA is the most costefficient and convenient for all classes of travellers to use. Delhi govt’s decision to reduce VAT to 7% makes our position stronger. The catchment areas of both the airports are different, and I believe that the entire air travel market within the region will grow.Your plans for cargo at IGIA?■ We are developing a cargo city in 1 crore square feet across two sites at the airport in the next 20 months. One 50 lakh square feet site is at Shahbad Mohammadpur that has direct airside access. We have signed up with Fedex for the same, and are in advanced talks with airlines, who also want direct airside access for cargo carriage. The other 50-lakh square feet site is within the airport premises.
