Canopy collapse: Delhi Airport Terminal-1 stares at month-long closure

New Delhi: It will take more than a month to start operations at Delhi Airport's revamped Terminal 1, with the country's busiest airport staring at a delay in boosting capacity after heavy rain last Friday led to a roof collapse at the old terminal and killed a person, said people aware of the matter.

Delhi Airport was preparing to start operations at a new terminal by the middle of July, but permission will now be given only after a thorough examination of the structure is complete, which may take more than a month, the people said."In the meantime, all flights have been accommodated at terminals 2 and 3," said an official, requesting anonymity.

A Delhi Airport spokesperson said that no flights have been delayed or cancelled, adding that a cross-functional team is actively evaluating the situation and engaging with various stakeholders to ensure passenger safety and convenience.


Terminal 2 is Delhi Airport's smallest terminal which it was planning to start once the new terminal opened. A team from an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is studying the probable cause of the incident on Friday, when a portion of the roof, canopy and several beams at the terminal collapsed after heavy rain.

Delhi Airport is the country's busiest, handling over 1,100 flights daily. It has completed a ₹8,000 crore expansion project, which will increase the capacity to about 100 million passengers per annum.

Under the project, the existing structure of Terminal 1, which had two separate buildings for departure and arrival, was to be integrated to build a new terminal, doubling capacity to 40 million passengers per annum.

Meanwhile, as many as 72 flights of IndiGo have shifted from Terminal 1, nearly half of them to Terminal 2. T2 can handle around 1,400 passengers per hour but new flights have choked the terminal, said airline officials.

They said the situation at the airport is like during the winter fog, when there were more passengers to handle at any given time than originally planned. Before Friday's accident, the airport had already started the process of shifting flight operations from T1.

Civil aviation minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu on Sunday met officials of the Central Industrial Security Force, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security and Directorate General of Civil Aviation to discuss how to manage the increased passenger flow.

While extra manpower and X-ray machines have been deployed, airlines have been asked to reschedule flights to non-peak hours, said people in the know. At Delhi Airport, there are four peak hour windows - 8-9 am, 1-2 pm, 4-5 pm and 8-9 pm.

A few flights may have to be cancelled to reduce the load, said an airline executive.

"There is severe impact on on-time performance of airlines as it is taking a long time to process boarding of passengers. Due to limited space in the apron, aircraft are disembarking passengers in T2, then taxi out and park in T3," the executive said on condition of anonymity.

Akasa Air, which operates from Terminal 2, has asked passengers to reach the airport at least three hours before the departure to allow additional time for check-in and security checks.

Nishant, a software engineer who took a flight on Monday, said it took him one hour to complete the check-in process. "There are long queues at the check-in counters, security area and waiting area for boarding. There are hardly any places to sit," he said.

"We remain committed to maintaining flight operations at T3 and T2, while operations at T1 are temporarily suspended," the Delhi Airport spokesperson said.