The train, which will be ready by 2020, will help passengers travel from one terminal to the other across T1, T2, and T3
By 2020, the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport will have an air train, a dedicated mode of transport, which will help travellers transit from one terminal to another. This service will bring IGI on par with some of the swankiest airports across the world, such as those in Hong Kong, Paris, Munich, London, which also provide this facility. With this, Delhi will become the first airport in India to boast of this world-class facility.
The Automated People Mover (APM) is expected to be made available by 2020 as per the recommendation of the Master Plan, 2016, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said in a written reply in Lok Sabha on Thursday. The Minister also told the Parliament that the design, cost, and other details of this project have been finalised.
The travel between Terminal 1 (low cost domestic), T2 (old international which will make way for a new T4 in 2020), and T3, will become much faster in three years' time as the speed of the air train would be much more than the speed of buses—which are presently used for inter connectivity at the IGI airport.
"The total length of the proposed APM alignment is 5.5 km out of which 1.5 km is underground and 4 km is elevated," added Sinha. Sources said that building the APM would be a costly affair. They said the average cost of each km of under and overground metro lines is up to Rs 500 and Rs 200 crore, respectively. So a 4-km over and 1.5-km underground line should cost about Rs 1,550 crore. Delhi International Airport Limited, the GMR-led joint venture consortium which manages IGI, has already taken steps to explore all technical possibilities with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Sinha said.
According to sources, Delhi International Airport (P) Limited (DIAL) has already held initial consultations with a New York-based firm. Based on that, the plan is to have four stations for its air train — at T1; Aerocity (the hospitality district); cargo terminal and a common one for T3 and T2/4. However, the plan will soon be formalised. One of the busiest airports in the world Delhi Airport — with two terminals (T3 and T1) and three runways — handled 5.5 crore passengers in 2016.
Easing transit
DIAL is expected to begin work on expanding T1 and laying the fourth runway by July. With this, the annual capacity at T1 will rise to 3.5 crore while T3-T2 will collectively handle about 4 crore passengers by 2020. Clearly there will be a large number of passengers transiting between T3/2 and T1 for flight transfers. Having an air train by then will mean a transit for flyers between terminals.
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