‘T-3 will help connect India to the world’
Amazed passengers entered the glittering new integrated Terminal-3 at New Delhi’s IGI Airport for the first time ever on Wednesday even as Air India announced that it plans to build a “primary hub” at Delhi airport to “connect India with the world”.
“The launch of T-3 provides Air India an opportunity to be the first mover to develop a formidable primary hub, from which it will be able to connect India to the world,” Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav announced on Wednesday at T-3 as the first commercial aircraft — an Air India flight from New York — landed at Delhi and its passengers disembarked at T-3.
Passengers of Air India Flight AI-102, which landed Wednesday evening, were greeted by DIAL — the operators of the New Delhi IGI Airport — with bouquets and a traditional Indian welcome. Certificates were also given to the Air India flight passengers that they had travelled on the inaugural flight to T-3.
The Air India aircraft was greeted with a “water cannon salute” as soon as it landed. Passengers said T-3 was a world-class facility and that this was a sign of the progress that India was making. The pilot of the aircraft said taxiing time to T-3 had been just about four minutes, down from the nine minutes to the (current) international Terminal-2 and 20 minutes to the domestic arrival terminal.
The Air India flight was the first of seven “proving” flights on Wednesday to “reaffirm the operational readiness” of the terminal. Gulf carrier Emirates will also operate a flight of the “superjumbo” A-380, the world’s largest aircraft, from Dubai to Delhi on Thursday and passengers will disembark at the new integrated terminal.
While there will be a few “proving flights” on Wednesday and Thursday wherein passengers will catch flights from or land at T-3, continuous international commercial flight movements to and from T-3 will begin from July 28 while continuous domestic operations will begin from August 27.
T-3 will also be part now of Air India’s turnaround plan. “The Air India hub will grow to its full potential over the next two seasons. Air India has partnered with DIAL to provide an unmatched choice of destinations and schedules out of its Delhi hub. The hallmark of restructured operations would be the introduction of non-stop services between Delhi and Melbourne which would be the only non-stop link between India and Australia. Also part of the plan is to introduce non-stop services from Delhi to Toronto and Chicago in addition to the existing non-stop services to New York,” Air India said.
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