About IGI

The primary airport of National Capital Region of Delhi, India is the Indira Gandhi International Airport situated in Palam. It is 15 km or 9.3 mi towards south-west New Delhi railway station or 16 km (9.9 mi) from the city centre of New Delhi. It is the busiest airport in India and is named after the former prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi. The Indira Gandhi International Airport of Delhi became the largest aviation hug of India as well as South Asia when the Terminal 3 of the airport started operating. At present, it has a capacity to handle more than 46 million passengers. The Chennai International Airport of Chennai, the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport of Mumbai and the Indira Gandhi International Airport of New Delhi together handle more than half of the aircraft movements in South Asia. Delhi International Airport Private Limited (DIAL), the operator of this airport aims at making it the next international transit hub.

Serving as the primary civilian aviation hub for the National Capital Region of India, Delhi airport spreads over a total area of 5,220 acres (2,110 ha). Previously, Indian Air Force managed it but now, the management is done by the Airports Authority of India. The management was passed over to Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) in May 2006. DIAL is a consortium led by the GMR group. It is also responsible for the growth, modernisation and expansion of the airport which is going on.

In 2011-12, 35.88 million passengers were handled by the airport and after the expansion this number will increase to 100 million in 2030. Since the start of the Commonwealth games, the new Terminal 3 which is the 8th largest passenger terminal in the world has had the capacity to handle 34 million more passengers each year. A 4,430 m (14,530 ft) runway was inaugurated in September 2008. The fourth best airport award was given to Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in the 15-25 million categories in 2010 and was also awarded the Best Improved Airport in the Asia-Pacific Region by Airports Council International. The IGIA was ranked as the world’s second best airport in the 25-40 million passengers category in the year 2011. This ranking was given by the Airports Council International. The airport was the world’s 34th busiest airport in 2011 for which full statistics are available from ACI. 34,729,467 passengers were handled and the growth in traffic was 17.8% as compared to the previous. An advanced system called the Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) is used here. This system does not work on the estimates but on the target timings to curtail or reduce delays in takeoffs and landing and also to make them precisely predictable.