Give us no. of passengers who flew from T-1 at IGI: HC to DGCA

The Delhi High Court today sought to know from aviation regulator DGCA the number of passengers who flew on IndiGo, Spicejet and GoAir to and from Delhi between April 1 to December 31, 2017 from Terminal 1 (T-1) of the IGI airport here.
A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Rekha Palli asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to prepare an affidavit of the three private carriers who have been asked by DIAL to partially shift their operations from T-1 to T-2.
It also directed the civil aviation regulator to produce before it the relevant records on January 18.

The bench sought the information during the hearing of an appeal filed by IndiGo against a single judge's December 20, 2017 order upholding the decision of IGI airport operator DIAL to partially shift its operations from T-1 to T-2.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohtagi, appearing for IndiGo, also contended that the single judge passed the order on the basis of information given by the Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) that they flew 16.1 million passengers per annum (mppa) between April 2016 till March 2017.
"We have flown only 14.62 mppa for the year concerned. 16.1 mppa reflects the capacity of the airlines and not the passengers," Rohtagi argued. He also contended that 14.62 mppa was not beyond the capacity of the T-1.

He said the DIAL itself has disclosed that T-1's existing capacity was 20 mppa.

The IndiGo counsel contended that the decision would cause "complete confusion and inconvenience" to passengers and virtually have the effect of destroying its business.
In view of the operational capacity of T-2, both GoAir and Spicejet, keeping in view their traffic load and operations as per data provided by DIAL, could be accommodated there and Indigo could continue operating from T-1.
Senior advocate Rajiv Nayar, appearing for DIAL, rubbished IndiGo's claims and said there was no error in the single judge's order.
"IndiGo has already crossed 12.5 mppa by December 2017 and by end of the financial year on March 31, 2018, it would cross 18 mppa," Nayar submitted.

He said the decision was taken after due deliberations, keeping in mind the security of passengers and stakeholders. "Such administrative decision was not subject to judicial review," Nayar submitted.
To this, the bench said, "We need to get the details of the passengers who travelled till December 31, 2017 from the DGCA."
IndiGo has challenged the single judge's ruling that there was no illegality in DIAL's order to order partial shifting of its operations, along with that of SpiceJet and GoAir, from T-1 to T-2 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport here.
DIAL on October 21 last year had asked the three airlines to shift their flights to and from Delhi to Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, to T-2 from January 4, 2018.

All other flights of the airlines shall continue to operate from T-1, the airport operator had said.
While upholding DIAL's decision, the single judge had given the airlines time till February 15 to partially shift their operations.