When the Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao-led GMR Group won the bid to redevelop the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in 2006, one of the earliest challenges faced by his team was runway delays. “We thought we had found the simplest solution: construct another runway,” recalls Prabhakara Rao, Chief Executive Officer of Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL).
The GMR-led consortium, which included Fraport AG, Malaysia Airport and Airports Authority of India, had won the bid to modernise and operate the IGI airport.
If anything, it turned out to be one of the toughest challenges for the GMR team. The site chosen for the second runway had a sewer line below and when work started all that sewage came into the airport. “For three months I knocked on every door to find out where the sewage was coming from. This was one of the biggest challenges,” says Rao, who can now afford to chuckle as he recalls that the new runway was eventually built eight months ahead of schedule.
While the modernised IGI airport and its new terminal T3, which opened in July 2010, have since been hailed as one of the success stories of Indian aviation, the recognition has now come from where it really matters. On February 15, the Airport Council International (ACI), the only global association of world airports, ranked the IGI Airport as the best in the world among those handling 24-40 million passengers annually.
24/02/15 Ashwini Phadnis/Business Line
The GMR-led consortium, which included Fraport AG, Malaysia Airport and Airports Authority of India, had won the bid to modernise and operate the IGI airport.
If anything, it turned out to be one of the toughest challenges for the GMR team. The site chosen for the second runway had a sewer line below and when work started all that sewage came into the airport. “For three months I knocked on every door to find out where the sewage was coming from. This was one of the biggest challenges,” says Rao, who can now afford to chuckle as he recalls that the new runway was eventually built eight months ahead of schedule.
While the modernised IGI airport and its new terminal T3, which opened in July 2010, have since been hailed as one of the success stories of Indian aviation, the recognition has now come from where it really matters. On February 15, the Airport Council International (ACI), the only global association of world airports, ranked the IGI Airport as the best in the world among those handling 24-40 million passengers annually.
24/02/15 Ashwini Phadnis/Business Line
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