Over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of shuffling around the Delhi Airport. The usually smooth operations between Terminal 1 and 3 were split into 3, when the Delhi Airport expansion came up for discussion. As a recap, the airport operator ordered all the carriers to move 30% of their flight operations to Delhi Terminal 2 by October 2017. Then, Indigo responded in the negative and SpiceJet said if everyone moves they will move as well. GoAir Delhi originating flights have moved to Terminal 2 already. Eventually, Delhi Airport had to play class monitor, and order IndiGo and SpiceJet to move part of their operations to Terminal 2. Now, time for another Delhi Terminal 2 to Terminal 3 merry go round.
Delhi Terminal 2
With the Terminal 2 of Delhi Airport now due for expansion, Delhi Airport has now decided that IndiGo and SpiceJet will have to shuffle around their operations a little bit more, this time to Terminal 3. The airlines will shift their operations on the night of September 4/5, 2019.
When IndiGo moved operations to Terminal 2, they had earmarked the series 2000-2999 for flights originating from Terminal 2, and had renumbered about 100 flights to be a part of this series. Now, IndiGo will be moving all the flights between 6E5000-6E5999 to Terminal 3. I haven’t yet come across an IndiGo flight in this range, so I would assume that this is a new series they will launch and place renumbered flights here which will operate from T3 going forward.
SpiceJet will, on the other hand, move their entire operation to Terminal 3 from Terminal 2. GoAir will not move its operation out of Terminal T2.
GoAir
Presently, Terminal T2 can handle 15 million passengers annually, which will be enhanced to 18 million passengers annually after the expansion project is completed in the next six months. As per the airport, this shuffle will reduce the load at Terminal 2 by 27% for the intervening period.
In a nutshell, DIAL’s plan is to merge Terminal 1D and Terminal 1C into a single Terminal 2 and bring back the flights from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1. They will then demolish T2 to raise Terminal 4 in its place. You can read all about the details here for the Delhi Airport expansion masterplan.
Bottomline
This would be very irritating for passenger again as well as the airlines to come up with a reorganisation. This especially is in wake of the fact that there is no through transfer for the bags offered by the no-frill airlines as my in-laws learnt the hard way. So, passengers who are bouncing around flights which are connections, but at different terminals, have to actually collect their bags and take it with them on the bus to the new terminal and check it in again. They definitely could have made it simpler from the Passenger Experience perspective.
What do you make about the new changes of flights at Delhi Terminal 2 to Terminal 3? And are you ready for another merry go round in 6 months?
I travel by Vistara whenever I go to Delhi. So keeps me confined to terminal T3