Three budget airlines told to shift flights to Terminal-2 from Feb 15

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 21

With no consensus emerging over who would shift from congested Terminal-1D to Terminal-2, Delhi International Airport Limited has now asked three budget carriers to move operations for flights linking Delhi to Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata to the newly constructed terminal.

Earlier, only SpiceJet and GoAir were told to shift operations to T2, which opposed the “preferential treatment” being meted out to IndiGo.

In a letter to the heads of the three airlines, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) chief executive officer, I Prabhakar Rao, said that since no consensus could be reached, all the three would have to shift operations to T2 so that T1D could be decongested for expansion work.

“After careful consideration, it has been decided that the flights operating to Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata of all the three airlines will be shifted to T2 from February 15 and accordingly, all resources will be allocated to T2,” Rao wrote.

The letter has been addressed to IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh, SpiceJet chairman and managing director Ajay Singh and GoAir CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer. It has also been marked to the Civil Aviation Minister as well as the Secretary, regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Airports Authority of India Chairman and the Director General, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security.

The airlines were also given an option to reduce flights in peak hours by 20 per cent and spread it to non-peak hours, which they did not agree to. DIAL held two rounds of negotiations on January 4 and 9 with the three airlines, but failed to reach any consensus. At present, low-cost domestic carriers IndiGo, Spicejet and GoAir operate from T1D whereas Vistara, AirAsia India, Jet Airways and Air India operate from Terminal-3.

Sources in SpiceJet said this was what the arrangement they were wanting as now all the three airlines were being treated on par. However, reports said that IndiGo was unhappy with this arrangement as the airline felt it would lead to “severe difficulties in operation and create confusion for passengers”.