Earlier known as Palam Airport, it was renamed IGI airport with the inauguration of a new international building (Terminal 2) on 2 May 1986. The older Palam airport (Terminal 1) is exclusively used for domestic operations. There is also a separate Technical Area for the use of VVIP movements.
The rated capacity of IGI airport's domestic area is said to be 8.4 million passengers per annum whereas the actual throughput last year 2005 was estimated variously at 10.5 million (an excess of 25%), 13 million passengers and (lately) "over 15 million passengers a year". The throughput may need to be ascertained correctly.
Delhi Airport has two non-parallel runways: the main runway 10-28 (12,500 ft) and an auxiliary runway 09-27 (9,229 ft). Runway 10-28 is one of the few runways in Asia equipped with CAT III-B Instrument Landing System. The winter of 2005 witnessed a record number of disruptions at Delhi airport due to fog/smog. Since then some domestic airlines have trained their pilots to operate under CAT-II conditions of minimum 350m visibility. On 31 March 2006, IGI became the first Indian airport to operate two runways simultaneously following a test run involving a SpiceJet plane landing and a Jet Airways plane taking off at the same time.
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