New Delhi: City’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) today became the first airport in the country to have four runways and an elevated taxiway. The total paved length of the runway is 4.4 km, and its width is 45 m, and it can handle wide-body aircraft including Airbus-380 and Boeing-777. The Dual-way elevated taxiway connects the Northern and Southern airfields of the airport. The Eastern Cross Taxiway (ECT) will help reduce taxi time by 8 to 9 minutes on the tarmac by flyers after landings and before take-offs. The taxiway will also help reduce taxi distance for aircraft by 7 km and annual CO2 emissions by 55,000 tonnes. Furthermore, four runway operations and the ECT will significantly increase capacity at IGIA – making it capable of handling 1700+ movements.
The new runway and the dual-way elevated taxiway were inaugurated today by Union Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia. He said the Eastern Cross Taxiway is the first of its kind in India. He said this runway along with the terminal expansion will add to creating capacity to serve more than 109 million people throughput which would crest and beat even Atlanta in its capability.
“With that capacity in place, we would be well positioned both on an infrastructure side and a capability side for creating the international civil aviation hub in India,” he added.
Some of the salient features of the runway and taxiway include:
| Fourth Runway (11R/29L) | Eastern Cross Taxiway (ECT) |
|
|
– global bihari bureau
