Delhi Airport Terminal 1 Likely To Shuts Down for a Month After Canopy Collapse

Operations at Delhi Airport's revamped Terminal 1 will be delayed by more than a month following a roof collapse at the old terminal due to heavy rain last Friday, resulting in one fatality, according to sources. The airport had planned to commence operations at the new terminal by mid-July. However, permission will now be granted only after a comprehensive structural examination, which is expected to take over a month. In the interim, all flights have been accommodated at Terminals 2 and 3, stated an anonymous official.

A spokesperson for Delhi Airport confirmed that no flights have been delayed or canceled. A cross-functional team is actively evaluating the situation and collaborating with various stakeholders to ensure passenger safety and convenience. Terminal 2, the airport's smallest terminal, was slated to start operations once the new terminal opened. A team from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is investigating the cause of the collapse, which involved the roof, canopy, and several beams.

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Delhi Airport, the busiest in the country, handles over 1,100 flights daily and recently completed a ₹28,000 crore expansion project to increase its capacity to approximately 100 million passengers per annum. The project included integrating the existing Terminal 1 buildings, previously separate for departures and arrivals, into a new terminal, doubling its capacity to 40 million passengers per annum. On other hand, in the wake of last week's roof collapse at Delhi Airport's Terminal 1, IndiGo has relocated 72 flights, nearly half of them to Terminal 2. However, airline officials report that the influx of flights has overwhelmed Terminal 2, which can handle around 1,400 passengers per hour. The situation has been likened to the winter fog period, where passenger volumes exceed the terminal's capacity.

Prior to the incident, the airport had already begun transitioning flight operations from Terminal 1. Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu met with officials from the Central Industrial Security Force, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, and Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Sunday to strategize on managing the increased passenger flow. Additional manpower and X-ray machines have been deployed to cope with the surge. Airlines have also been instructed to reschedule flights to non-peak hours. At Delhi Airport, the peak hours are 8-9 am, 1-2 pm, 4-5 pm, and 8-9 pm.