By Staff Correspondent
Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), a GMR Group-led consortium, has successfully completed the rehabilitation work of the British-era Runway 9/27 (also known as 1st runway) of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport.
DIAL handed over the refurbished runway to Air Traffic Control (ATC) for commercial operations on December 24, 2021, after completion of rehabilitation work. The newly rehabilitated runway complies with Category-I (CAT-I) Instrument Landing System (ILS), which assists pilots while landing an aircraft in low visibility conditions.
DIAL undertook the rehabilitation work of runway 9/27 as part of Delhi Airport’s Phase 3A Expansion project. Upon completing Phase 3A expansion work, Delhi Airport would become future-ready. Its passenger handling capacity would increase to 100 million passengers per annum (MPPA), and the airside capacity would be enhanced to handle 140 MPPA.
“DIAL has successfully completed the rehabilitation work of Runway 9/27 and its taxiways. The British-era runway was rehabilitated and made operational for commercial operations as part of DIAL’s effort to enhance Delhi Airport’s infrastructure and passenger experience to make it future-ready. The newly rehabilitated runway will have a design life of 20 years and would be instrumental in handling the increased air traffic movements (ATMs) once pre-pandemic level traffic returns to Delhi Airport,” said Mr I. Prabhakar Rao, Deputy Managing Director, GMR Group.
The British constructed the 2,816 metre-long and 60 metre-wide runway in the pre-Independence era and used it during World War- II. DIAL undertook significant rehabilitation works, which included milling down the entire length of the runway’s flexible pavement to a depth of 60 mm, and overlaying it with Polymer Modified Bitumen (PMB).
Polymer modified bitumen (PMB) is bitumen combined with one or more polymer materials that enhance the bitumen material’s mechanical properties. PMB can withstand heavy-duty traffic and extreme weather conditions. Runway 9/27, which is on the Northern side of Delhi Airport, has a network of a total of 9 (nine) taxiways, out of which 6 (six) are connecting taxiways, and 3 (three) are rapid exit taxiways (RETs).
DIAL has also realigned a new 3.5 KM-long taxiway parallel to runway 9/27. This will reduce the Runway Occupancy Time (ROT) and help in improving the traffic flow. DIAL has also upgraded the Airfield Ground Lighting (AGL) system for runway 9/27 with a duct and pit system as part of the rehabilitation project. It has laid around 58 Km of AGL ducts and 430 AGL pits (both primary and secondary combined) to connect the runway AGL systems to ESUs and facilitate smooth operations.
All the runway and taxiways (around 850 nos.) lights have been upgraded to LED systems for higher efficiency and reliability as part of rehabilitation work. DIAL is constructing approximately 7.3 Km of drain on both sides of the runway to cater for the runoff water from the newly rehabilitated runway 9/27 and its associated taxiways.
