94 private jets, 1,550 total flights: Number of aircraft soars like never before at Delhi's IGI Airport on last day of AI Summit

NEW DELHI: At about 1,550, the capital’s IGI Airport handled its highest ever aircraft movement in a day last Friday (Feb 20) — the final day of the AI Summit being hosted here. Given the large number of top business leaders and heads of states leaving on their jet planes, IGIA created another record for itself that day by handling 94 general aviation (private or charter) aircraft movement.While the average daily air traffic movement (ATM) at India’s busiest hub is about 1,500 (plus, minus 20) that includes flights by airlines, defence, VVIP, business jets and charters, during the summit (Feb 16-19) the number rose by about 30 with the peak coming on the last day. The average daily GA movement here is in the range of 30 to 35, with Feb 20 seeing triple that number. The VVIP Palam side of IGIA chipped in by providing parking space to accommodate private aircraft that remained here during the duration of the summit and left with their high profile passengers. Officials say IGIA saw “impeccable coordination” between various stakeholders like air traffic control (ATC), Indian Air Force, airside movement, Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), security agencies and airlines. “Senior controllers were deputed at the tower 24x7. Delhi Airport GM (ATC) Tanvir-Ul Haque used to be here till well past midnight almost everyday. The significant VVIP movement was handled as per protocol by ensuring they don’t face any delays either in air or on ground,” said people in the know. In fact, the airside of its airport was possibly the only place that escaped absolute traffic chaos in Delhi during AI summit days. What happened outside the airport on city side especially in central Delhi — except for VIPs — was another story.AI summit saw one of the not-so-common times when all four runways of IGIA were operational. In fact, the five-month-long closure of its third runway (11R/29L) for upgradation was deferred from Feb 16 to ensure that the summit — and anticipated spurt in air traffic — saw the airport at 100% capacity. DIAL was asked to keep all runways operational till Monday (Feb 23) and will now close 11R/29L in the next day or two.The last mega event Delhi had hosted was G20 in Sept 2023. “The air traffic seen during AI summit was much more than that during G20 days. For one, scheduled passenger traffic has increased a lot since then with IGIA seeing abut 2.5 lakh passengers daily at present,” said people in the know. On Feb 20, the airport saw 2.46 lakh scheduled passengers. This was only a shade below the all-time high daily figure of 2.52 lakh.While passenger numbers are higher now, IGIA breathed easy on one thing that had become a major headache during G20 — over 60 grounded planes of then defunct airlines including GoAir & Jet Airways and IndiGo planes awaiting functional engines from Pratt & Whitney. “That number has reduced to half now. Almost all GoAir planes have gone now and now there are grounded planes of IndiGo, SpiceJet and two of Jet,” said people in the know.