The Delhi High Court confirmed on February 13 that the Delhi International airport operator was at liberty to order three Indian airlines to relocate some of their operations to another terminal so as to alleviate congestion. IndiGo Airlines and SpiceJet have until February 20 to agree on a date of relocation with the airport, Business Today has reported.
Both carriers had earlier challenged the order, but the court sided with the airport operator. If the parties fail to agree on a date by the set deadline, Delhi airport will be allowed to unilaterally impose a new relocation schedule.
Delhi airport ordered IndiGo and SpiceJet last year to relocate their flights to each of Mumbai International, Bengaluru International, and Kolkata from Terminal 1D to Terminal 2, a former international facility closed in 2010 and reopened in October 2017 as a domestic one. The order also covered GoAir, the only airline which did not challenge it and which fully relocated last year.
Both carriers argued that by splitting their operations between two domestic terminals, the airport is jeopardising their connecting traffic and lowering their service quality.
As part of the dispute, SpiceJet has indefinitely postponed the launch of its Delhi-Adampur route.
According to the ch-aviation capacity module, IndiGo Airlines is currently the largest domestic operator at Delhi with 1,064 weekly departures. SpiceJet offers 317 weekly domestic departures out of the Indian capital, while GoAir offers 305. Other major domestic airlines, which will continue to operate solely at Terminal 3, include Jet Airways (683 weekly departures), Air India (562 weekly departures), and Vistara (296 weekly departures).
The relocated services represent 28% of all domestic departures out of Delhi for IndiGo Airlines and 23.3% for SpiceJet.
