Flying To Or From Delhi In November? You May Face Disruptions After Airport Plans 15 Day Runway Repairs

If you are flying to and from the national capital in November, you may need to prepare for disruptions as around 100 flights a day may be affected by the closing of runway 27/09 in for repair works, Hindustan Times has reported.

The runway 27/09 will be closed for 13 days starting from November 15 for the repair works. The runway is also used for VIP operations.

Delhi airport has three runways which in combination handle 75 flights an hour. With the closure of 27/09 the flight handling capacity will reduce to 60 flights an hour.

Airlines, owing to the closure of the runway, may have to cancel many flights causing inconvenience to the passengers.

“DIAL (Delhi International Airport Limited) is planning the closure of Runway 27/09 to carry out preventive repairs. The work is scheduled to be undertaken for 13 day duration starting from 15th November 2018. This will lower the capacity of IGI Airport by 50 arrivals and 50 departures per day in this duration. This work is essential for safe aircraft operations and to avoid sudden disruptions that causes greater impact due to time required for planning the logistics,” a spokesperson for DIAL told.

Two other runways 10/28 and 11/29 will be fully operational but air traffic of 1300 flights a day at Delhi airport makes it very difficult to handle these flights with just two runways.

The waiting time owing to the delay in flights may cause congestion at the Delhi airport.

“Departures will be affected while in Delhi during the repair work, 15 flights will be affected everyday” told the sposkesperson of low fare airline Spicejet. The airline, however, did not clearly say anything about cancellation or rescheduling of flights.