HC asks DIAL, airlines to resolve issues on shifting from T-1

The Delhi High Court today gave the "last opportunity" to IGI airport operator DIAL and the airlines and asked them to sit and resolve the issues relating to shifting of the flights of IndiGo, Spicejet and GoAir from Terminal-1 (T-1) to T-2 of Delhi's aviation hub.
A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Rekha Palli said it deemed it appropriate "to give one last opportunity" to the parties to settle the issues by tomorrow or else it will hear arguments on appeal by the Interglobe Aviation, which provides services in the name of IndiGo.
"The parties shall resolve the issues among themselves to best of their ability," it said, adding the issues raised involves a larger public interest. It decided to hear the parties again tomorrow.

The bench observed that the inconvenience, which would be caused to the public, was troubling it, and hence it wanted to give them one last chance to resolve the problems.
Meanwhile, aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said while IndiGo flew 12.7 million passengers per annum (mppa) between April 1 to December 31, 2017, Spicejet and GoAir's traffic load was 3.7 and over 2 mppa.
DGCA gave the information in pursuance to the court's direction yesterday to provide details of the number of passengers who flew on these airlines to and from Delhi in this period.

The direction came during the hearing of an appeal by IndiGo against a single judge's December 20 last year order upholding the decision of the DIAL to partially shift its operations from T-1 to T-2.

The IndiGo had contended that the decision would cause "complete confusion and inconvenience" to passengers and virtually have the effect of destroying its business.
It had said in view of T-2's operational capacity, 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.
DIAL had rubbished IndiGo's claims and said there was no error in the single judge's order.
On October 21 last year, DIAL had asked the three airlines to shift their flights to and from Delhi to Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, to T-2 from January 4. 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.