Delhi airport T2 to be shut temporarily from April, variable user fees to increase airfare

Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) will shut Terminal 2 (T2) of Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) for four to five months starting April, as part of a major infrastructure upgrade, the airport operator said on Wednesday. One of the runways will also be closed during this period for the Instrument Landing System upgrade, which will make the runway CAT III B compliant.

The airport, which has three terminals and an annual passenger handling capacity of about 109 million, is seeing increasing traffic.

DIAL will shift T2’s annual passenger load of around 15 million to Terminal 1 (T1), which is expected to become operational by March 15 after receiving regulatory approvals, CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar said at a media briefing.

The airport operator is also planning to convert a section of Terminal 3 (T3) from domestic to international operations to ease congestion.

T3 currently handles about 24 million international passengers annually, exceeding its rated capacity of 20 million.

The proposed conversion of Pier C into an international section will expand T3’s international capacity to 32 million passengers, which DIAL believes will meet demand for the next four to five years.

“T2 to be shut for four to five months. During this period, one of our runways is going to be non-operational because ILS (Instrument Landing System) upgrade will be happening. We want to do it before the winter season,” Jaipuriar said.

DIAL, a consortium led by the GMR Group, has invested ₹30,000 crore in IGIA since taking over its operations in 2006. It has paid ₹25,000 crore to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) as part of revenue sharing, in addition to a ₹192 crore dividend.

However, the airport operator reported an accumulated loss of ₹2,900 crore as of December 2024.

For international embarking passengers, the proposed UDF ranges from ₹430 to ₹810 for economy class and ₹860 to ₹1,620 for business class. The fee is proposed at ₹810 per economy class passenger for the first two years (2025-26 and 2026-27), reducing to ₹430 in 2027-28 and 2028-29. Business class passengers would be charged ₹1,620 for the first two years, dropping to ₹860 thereafter.

International disembarking passengers could see a UDF of ₹280 (economy) and ₹570 (business) per person in 2025-26 and 2026-27, decreasing to ₹150 and ₹300, respectively, in 2027-28 and 2028-29.

For domestic flights, DIAL has proposed varied UDF rates based on peak and off-peak hours. Domestic embarking passengers may pay between ₹315 and ₹610 during peak hours, while disembarking passengers could be charged between ₹115 and ₹210. Peak hours are generally from 0500-0855 hours and 1700-2055 hours.

Jaipuriar said the new tariff proposal, currently under review by the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA), is expected to increase the Yield Per Passenger (YPP) to ₹370 from the current ₹145.

The proposed increase, he said, represents a 140% rise from 2006 levels.

“Out of Rs 370, as suggested by AERA, about 30 per cent should be towards airline charges and 70 per cent towards passenger charges... now, it is 68 per cent airline charges and 32 per cent passenger charges,” he said.

The proposed tariff hike is expected to result in a 1.5% to 2% increase in domestic airfares, while international fares will rise by less than 1%, he added.