IGIA sees record number of flights, pips Mumbai airport

 Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) created a new record this month and marched ahead of all Indian airports.

The airport witnessed 1,082 flight movements a fortnight ago, the highest-ever for any civil Indian airport and also saw a daily average of 1,035 movements this month.

The Delhi airport is now the busiest airport in the country, in both the categories of air traffic movement and passenger traffic.

It has long overtaken the Mumbai airport by not only catering to more passengers (40.99 million compared to Mumbai's 36.63 million in 2014-15) but also handling many more flights, which apart from scheduled commercial flights, also includes chartered flights, VIP flights and helicopter movements.

Delhi airport has been able to handle increasing number of domestic and international airlines and flights thanks to its three runways (28/10, 29/11 and 27/09) that often operate simultaneously. IGIA also holds the record for handling more flight movements per hour, which oscillates between an average of 65 per hour to 75 per hour during peak traffic hours.

According to officials of the Delhi air traffic control, the steep hike in number of flights in November was thanks to the movement of many chartered flights during the Bihar elections, couple with the ongoing festival season.

“The number of flights from Delhi has increased substantially in the last few months and the number of general aviation flights (chartered flights) has gone up too,” said a senior air traffic control official who didn't wished to be named.

“There was a dip in number of flights couple of years ago when Kingfisher Airlines stopped operating but with new domestic and international airlines starting their flights, the number has gone up than before,” he said. “The new aviation policy of the government also proposes more regional connectivity, which would also mean more number of flights. We are already looking at handling 1,200 flights a day very soon and perhaps even handle more flights than London's Heathrow airport,” he said.

The airport witnessed a record number of 1,082 flight movements on November 6 but that was not a standalone figure. Except for two days, the airport has seen more than 1,000 flight movements this month till date, with an average of 1,035 a day. This includes more than 1,070 flight movement on three days.