Work on closed runway at Delhi airport to be completed by Jan 19

Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) is expecting to complete the work on the now closed runway RWY 10/28 by January 19, the airport operator has informed the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), according to people in the know.

The RWY 10/28, which can handle flight landings (CAT-III) in low visibility, has been under refurbishment since mid-September.

Currently, only one out of four runways at the Delhi airport, RWY 11R/29L, is capable of using the CAT-III system, which allows pilots to land when visibility is as low as 50 meters.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will inspect the RWY 10/28 following the completion of its refurbishment, a person aware of the development said.

As hundreds of flights at the Delhi airport have been delayed and cancelled since Sunday due to dense fog, Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday told the GMR Group-led DIAL to accelerate completion of work on RWY 10/28. On Tuesday, he reiterated that DIAL will operationalise the runway as soon as possible.

The RWY 10/28 was supposed to be operationalised by the first week of this month.

“There were some challenges such as the G20 summit, and a pause on construction work due to pollution which may have caused delays with the completion of the runway’s renovation,” the person quoted above said.

With the operationalisation of RWY 10/28, the airport will have two CAT III compliant runways.

While responding to concerns raised by Member of Parliament (MP) Shashi Tharoor on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Scindia said the aforementioned runway will be operationalised this week.

“Runway maintenance work is a critical safety element for aviation operations, and any compromise with runway conditions directly jeopardises passenger safety. As a result, the maintenance was taken on top priority to be completed by 15th December before the onset of the fog season. However, due to pollution incidents and enforcement of the Graded Response Action Plan in Delhi, the recarpeting got delayed, resulting in a delay of one month in its commissioning. The revamped RWY is getting operational this week,” he tweeted.

Airlines are grappling with fog-induced flight disruptions since Sunday.

To tackle this challenge, runways at airports need to have infrastructure such as an Instrument Landing System (ILS) in place to handle operations in low visibility conditions.

Airports equipped with a CAT I ILS can ensure flights can land in conditions with 550 meter visibility. Similarly, aircraft can land in conditions with a visibility of 350 meters on runways that are CAT II compliant. CAT-III ILS allows pilots to land flights when visibility is as low as 50 meters.

The Delhi airport has four runways: RW 09/27, RW 11R/29L, RW 10/28, and RW 11L/29R.

Meanwhile, the DGCA earlier this week asked airlines to give real-time updates on flight delays, as it issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) in the wake of flight disruptions.

In the SOP, the DGCA has asked airlines to cancel flights that are anticipated to be delayed or are delayed for more than three hours due to fog or other adverse weather conditions.

This will help alleviate congestion at the airport and mitigate passenger inconvenience, it noted. It has also asked airlines to sensitise their airport staff to suitably communicate with, and continuously guide and inform the passengers about flight delays.