Delhi Airport's first-ever British-era runway built during WW II refurbished

Runway 09/27 at Delhi's IGI was the first ever runway built at the airport for military purposes and has now been transformed into a modern one operational for commercial use.

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GMR Group run DIAL, the private body responsible for Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport has completed refurbishing work on the British-era runway built during World War II. Runway 09/27 was the first ever runway built at the Delhi's airport for military purposes and has now been transformed into a modern one operational for commercial use. The newly rehabilitated runway will have a design life of 20 years and would be instrumental in handling the increased air traffic movements (ATMs) once pre-pandemic level traffic return to Delhi Airport.

Delhi Airport is the India's biggest and busiest domestic and international airport with three terminals. The updated runway with the new and latest equipment, complies with Category-I (CAT-I) Instrument Landing System (ILS), which assists pilots to land during low visibility conditions too. As per data available with DIAL, the British constructed the 2,816 metre-long and 60 metre-wide runway in the pre- Independence era and used it during World War II.

Deputy Managing Director, GMR Group, I Prabhakar Rao said, "DIAL has successfully completed the rehabilitation work of Runway 09/27 and its taxiways. The British-era runway was rehabilitated and made operational for commercial operations as part of DIAL's effort to enhance the infrastructure and passenger experience at Delhi Airport to make it future-ready."

Now all the existing lights of the runway and taxiways, around 850 in number, have been upgraded from normal lights to LED systems for higher efficiency and reliability as a part of the rehabilitation work. Delhi Airport is confident that after completing the refurbishment of the runway, "its passenger handling capacity would increase to 100 million passengers per annum (MPPA) and the airside capacity will enhance to handle 140 MPPA," DIAL said.

Meanwhile, Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport Runway 09/27 which is on the Northern side, has a network of a total of nine taxiways out of which six are connecting taxiways and three are rapid exit taxiways (RETs). 

With inputs from PTI