IGI's T3 ready to take on the world

New Delhi: Unofficially, executives of Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) would tell you that T3, the world’s second largest integrated airport terminal at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, will leave you with a sense of “shock and awe” when it opens on July 3. In fact, it does precisely that on a sneak peak this writer managed today.
Finishing touches are still being given to the terminal.
Spread over four kilometres, it is a sprawling architectural marvel in gleaming glass. The sun rays reflecting from the glass facade could be felt a good five kilometers away on the driveway to the airport.
Move closer and one could see the frenzy with which T3 is being dolled up to dazzle.
With a multi-pronged driveway to Delhi’s latest airport terminal — by metro, bus and cab — the first structure that will strike the eye is the six-storeyed parking space, with its tentacles embracing the colour-coded glass-and-steel structure.
Nearly a kilometre-long passenger terminal greets the guest to T3 with mirror-finished vitrified tiles in grey and beige, and walls, whatever little of it is there, in pristine white.
The terminal is all about space. With more than 80 per cent of the structure in clear glass, supported by metal frames, T3 is endless on both sides. Readying to handle 34 million passengers a year, with 168 check-in counters, 49 immigration desks and 50 emmigration desks, all housed in a blend of tradition with modernity.
Vitrified tiles give way to exquisitely crafted Kashmiri carpets of two different designs on two floors for domestic and international piers, each about one-and-a-half km long. They are interspersed with a whopping 92 traveloters (automatic walkways). The roof has been designed to allow natural light to enter the building. The terminal leads to the staggering 78 aerobridges, said to be the highest in the world in a single site.
The central hall from where domestic and international passengers part ways dons a huge mural with mudras of Indian dance forms. Stairways to the upper floors reveal walls designed with traditional art forms reflected in blue neons.
23/06/10 Arindam Bhattacharjee/Business Standard

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Categories: Airports Jun 2010, New Jun 2010