Delhi airport's space not used well, show figures

The new terminal 3 or T3 at the Delhi airport may be one of the largest in the world in terms of size but it is not as efficient as its international and domestic peers in space utilisation.

T3 is the largest airport terminal in the country and the eighth largest in the world but its capacity utlisation is only 62 passengers per square metre.

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This is significantly lower than counterparts such as at London or Bangkok. Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow, for instance, has a space utilisation of 85 passengers per sq metre.

Bangkok has 80 per sq metre.

Among domestic airports, Mumbai caters to 93 passengers every sq metre.

The Bangalore and Hyderabad airport figures are 155 and 119, respectively.

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According to the master plan, the terminal was to be built over  4,70,000 square metres.

The operator, Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), however, overbuilt the third terminal by 80,000 sq metres, thus bringing down the average capacity utilisation.

DIAL is a joint venture company of the Bangalore-headquartered GMR Group, state-owned Airports Authority of India, Fraport and Malaysian Airport Holdings.

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DIAL defence

In its defence, DIAL says T3 is a pier-type terminal, similar to Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 of Singapore's Changi airport, where aircraft are parked on either side of the piers.

Hence, it would be unfair to compare average capacity utilisation at T3 with other domestic terminals in the country.

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"The agreement for terminal 3 requires that 90 per cent of passengers should be served by aerobridges.

Thus, our terminal has the largest number of aerobridges in the world at 78, the highest within a single terminal anywhere in the world and also has 120 CAT-III compliant parking stands," the company said in an emailed statement.

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In comparison, Mumbai airport will have 66 aerobridges and 106 parking stands after the work on the integrated terminal 2 is completed by 2014 and all in an area of 430,000 sq metres.

The airport will  cater to 40 million passengers annually.

DIAL further holds that the type of traffic that T5 at Heathrow handles is different from that at T3 and is predominantly 'transfer & transit', with much less requirement of city-side forecourts, check-in area and baggage claim area.

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It adds that Bangkok also handles more of 'transfer & transit' as a percentage of total traffic in comparison to T3 at Delhi.

"DIAL has done an evaluation of space requirements of comparable terminals and we are in the optimum range, considering the type of traffic we handle."

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Critique

A Delhi-based infrastructure analyst says the huge terminal in Delhi can be justified in one way or the other but it does not make sense.

"An airport terminal should be clean, passenger-friendly and have enough space and seating arrangements for people.

For that, one does not have to necessarily build a large terminal.

Such an expansive terminal building at Delhi is absolutely not justified."

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The analyst adds that every airport sees more or less the same amount of transfer & transit traffic.

"Terminal 3 of the Delhi airport will also see a huge increase in transfer and transit traffic when the airlines who have said they'll make T3 their hub will start fully."

Government-owned Air India has already said it's going to make T3 its international hub.

Various other airlines are looking at and are partially routing their operations through here.

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But others justify the extensive floor space built by DIAL by saying a large terminal will provide for additional shopping space and ultimately bringing in revenue for the airport operator.

"The new terminal in Delhi has a large shopping area, including many eating joints, which ultimately increases the non-aeronautical revenue of the airport operators and gives a lot of options to the passengers.

But adequate arrangements have to be made for transfering people who cannot walk or are old at T3," said Amrit Pandurangi, senior director (infrastructure practice), Deloitte.