Air India may shift all its Delhi domestic ops to T3 from Sunday

Air India, the government-owned carrier, is likely to shift its domestic operations here from Terminal-1 to the new Terminal 3 (T3) of the IGI airport from this Sunday, official sources said here today.

“In the wake of logistic problems being faced by passengers due to shifting of (only) some of the flights to T3 in the past few days, the (civil aviation) ministry was examining the possibility of shifting all the domestic operations of AI arrivals and departures from T1 to T3,” an airline source said.

Some sources said the ministry held a meeting today and decided to shift the operations to T3.

AI had shifted domestic operations and the arrivals of 11 flights from T1 to T3 from last Sunday but due to splitting of human and other resources between the two terminals, passengers had to wait for more than five hours to get their baggage after arrival at T3.

The same thing happened today. “We had to distribute our work force, equipment and other things between the two terminals, so this problem has arisen. Also, being the festive season, we have less staff to handle the increased number of flights from T3. This could also be solved when the operations are done or undertaken from one terminal,” a source said.

To help AI, the airport operator, DIAL has provided 15 additional loaders and a supervisor to streamline the functioning. Sources said the problem is also because the AI staff at the new terminal were not familiar with the building.