Delhi IGI airport's new runway gets rave review from International Civil Aviation Organisation
04 Sep 2008
New Delhi: A team of the Air Navigation Commission (ANC), which falls under the aegis of UN body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has given a positive review to the new runway at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) at New Delhi.
In its recommendations, the ANC team has said that lessons from the completion of the project should be shared with other countries. A few weeks ago, the third runway at the Indira Gandhi International Airport was opened for trial runs with the safe landing of an Air India Boeing 777-300 (ER).
At 4,430 metres length, the third runway at the IGIA is amongst the longest in Asia.
The Air Navigation Commission (ANC) was on a which two-week visit to India, and had a first- hand glimpse of construction activities to build the modern airport. The GMR-led consortium, Delhi International Airport (DIAL), briefed the ANC team headed by ANC President Omari R Nundu.
A note from the Commission said that the ANC team felt lessons from the execution of such a complex project could be shared with other contracting states of the ICAO.
The team was informed about the execution of various activities, including the Code 'F' runway called 11-29, which was commissioned well ahead of schedule.
The master plan for the new airport call for the first phase to be completed before the 2010 Commonwealth Games in the national capital, which would beef up the airport's capacity to an estimated 60 million passengers by 2012.
The ANC team also met with Civil Aviation secretary Ashok Chawla and got an insight to the strong traffic growth being witnessed by India in the aviation sector over the last few years. The were also advised of various policy measures and steps taken by the government to overcome infrastructure constraints.
