New Delhi, March 1 National capital's IGI Airport intends to enhance the passenger experience and somewhat augment its revenues via soft infrastructure that provides services which are associated more with online industry like baggage pick-up and shop-and-drop.
Accordingly, IGIA has gone beyond than just providing traditional side services and facilities like food outlets or retail points by introducing mobile application based solutions, baggage services and more.
"The Delhi Airport has been going the extra mile to enhance overall travel experience of its passengers," said Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, Chief Executive at Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) which runs the IGIA.
According to industry insiders, new and innovative offerings are increasingly coming up at facilities like airports, as latent business potential and an assured captive population at these sites, making them hot-spots for e-based services.
In one such offering, Delhi airport has launched an AI-based mobile app HOI to enrich passenger experience by integrating self-check-in process and enable paperless journey for the fliers.
As per specifications, the mobile app allows passengers to check important travel details, track real-time flight information, receive travel alerts and reminders and navigate through maps.
Furthermore, the airport operator has started to provide another service, whereby passengers' baggage is picked up from their doorstep and delivered back to them at departure zone against a fee.
Passengers arriving at Delhi airport can get their baggage delivered to locations in NCR region, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Lately, the airport has also launched a Sakha Cab service for women passengers amongst others.
Besides the new services, DIAL has kicked off the next phase of airport expansion which is expected to enable IGIA to handle 100 million passengers per annum (MPPA) in the next three years.
An estimated Rs 9,800 crore is being spent on the expansion plan which envisions an enhanced air-side capacity to handle around 140 million passengers.
Additionally, the expansion drive will make IGIA the only airport in India to have four runways.
The project under Phase 3A is expected to be ready by June 2022. The new air-side infrastructure, such as the dual elevated eastern cross taxiways will be constructed in this phase.
Another key feature of the plan is the new integrated Terminal 1 with 40 million passenger handling capacity. The integrated terminal will have several passenger-friendly facilities, such as facial recognition system and aero bridges.
On the city-side, a flyover at Aerocity metro station would be constructed to reduce travel time from T1 to T3.
(Rohit Vaid can be contacted at rohit.v@.in)
( With inputs from IANS )