Indira Gandhi International Airport: Terminal 3

    In the first week of July, Prime Minister of India Doctor Man Mohan Singh inaugurated swanky Terminal 3 and it was suppose that commercial flights will begins from this terminal on 14th July for international routes and on 31st July domestic flights will also start operating from terminal 3 but later on period was dragged to 28th July for international flights and 27th August for domestic flights and the gap between the time was set for trial operations, so from today onwards it will start operating for international flights. With this National Capital will join the league of London and Singapore whose Airports have world class facilities. T3 has capacity to handle 34 million passengers per year which is bigger then Heathrow T5 and Singapore’s Changi Airports T3 which have capacity to handle 25 million and 22 million passengers per year respectively. The area terminal 3 has covered is 5.4 million square feet and 80 per cent of T3 is made of glass and supported by metal frames. The nine level terminal building would be used for 90 per cent of the entire passenger movement in the airport and terminal has 168 check in counters which are divided into six islands with two main conveying lines to every island serving 14 counters each, it has 100 travelators and 78 boarding bridges will be used for embarking and disembarking of passengers, for helping them to collect their baggage 6400 meters of conveyor belts, automatic baggage handling system have the capacity to handle 12,800 baggage per hours. Terminal 3 has the honour of largest structure ever constructed in the country, it has 95 immigration counters for different set of travelers. International brands like Mark and Spencer, Swarovski, Versace, Mango and domestic brands like Delhi Bazaar outlets available for shopping. The area covered by these duty free stores are 20,000 square feet, Pizza Hut, Copper Chimney, Costa Coffee, KFC, Flavours, Café Ritazza and Food Village are among the options available for appetite. Built in record time as compare to other airports of the world like –

• Changi Airport T3– 76 months
• Heathrow Airport T5- 60 months
• Beijing Airport (new terminal for Olympics)T3 – 60 months
• Indira Gandhi Airport T3 – 37 months

While most of the plants were picked from various nurseries around the country, a few exotic varieties of orchids were sourced from Thailand and Mexico. The airport will have nine lakhs trees and plants.The main features of swanky T3 are-

• 168 check-in counters and 95 immigration desks.
• Plants, material imported from Thailand, Mexico, Bahrain.
• Multi-layer parking facility that can park up to 4,300 cars.
• Sixth largest in the world after those at Dubai, Beijing, Singapore, Bangkok and Mexico City
• It can handle 12,800 bags per hour and having 6.4 km of conveyor belts.
• One pier each for international and domestic operations spanning 1.2 km from one end to other.
• 63 elevators, 35 escalators and 92 automatic walkways.
• At present International Terminal contains 10 aerobridges but it has 78.
• 20,000 sq meters of retail area, including a large food court.
• A city within, with a super-structure spread over 5.4 million sq ft.

India is preparing to welcome guest from Commonwealth countries in the month of September with international Standard from Airport to other facilities and organisers are claiming that it will be one of the biggest great gala in the history of Commonwealth Games.