Dogged by VIP delays, flyers may get relief

New Delhi: There's relief in sight for air travellers who face long delays in Delhi due to frequent VVIP flights. Following directions from the cabinet secretariat to review VVIP flight protocol, aviation authorities may recommend lifting the blanket ban on aircraft movement on each of IGI's three runways for three minutes before and after a dignitary's movement.
They are likely to recommend that IGI's newest runway runway 29 on Shiv statue side remain open for schedule commercial flights and the three-minute ban on flights be imposed on the other two runways (main runway 28 and 27) from where all VVIP movement would take place. This means, flights may take off and land on runway 29 while those carrying dignitaries may simultaneously use the other two airstrips. This suggestion is likely to be formally made this week itself.
At present, domestic flights landing on runways 29 need to cross the main runway (28) to reach the domestic terminal. So, if there's a VVIP movement, they need to wait much before those two runways till the time the VVIP flight has taken off or landed.
05/07/10 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jul 2010