People living in any part of Delhi and the National Capital Region will now have access to Delhi airport through the Delhi Metro from March end. The Terminal 1 of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), which caters domestic carriers IndiGo and SpiceJet, will get a Metro station as part of the 34.2-km Janakpuri West-Botanical Garden corridor of the Magenta Line.
The section of the Magenta Line between Botanical Garden and Kalkaji Mandir is already operational and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) likely to open the remaining line by the end of March, officials said.
“The station will greatly help domestic passengers. People coming from south Delhi will have a direct connectivity as areas like Kalkaji, Nehru Place, Hauz Khas, Munirka will just be 20 minutes away. Similarly, those coming from areas in east Delhi such as Vaishali (Ghaziabad), Anand Vihar, Lakshmi Nagar can either go to Botanical Garden or Janakpuri West to take the train for Terminal 1. The journey is expected to take 50 minutes from Laxmi Nagar,” said a DMRC spokesperson.
Delhi airport’s Terminal 3 already has Metro connectivity through the Airport Express Line and currently, passengers have to take feeder bus from the Aerocity Metro station to go to Terminal 1.
Passengers travelling on the Magenta Line, who have flights from T3, can get down at T1 and take the feeder service for T2 and T3.
Officials said the fare of this section will be normal and the station will be connected to the terminal through a subway with walkalators.
“Residents of west Delhi areas such as Punjabi Bagh, Netaji Subhash Place can take the new Mukundpur-Yamuna Vihar corridor, change at Rajouri Garden and then take existing Dwarka-Noida/Vaishali line and reach Janakpuri West to go to T1,” the spokesperson added.
The line will also benefit people living in north and central Delhi as they can take the HUDA City Centre-Samaipur Badli line to reach Hauz Khas and board for the airport. The journey on the Metro is expected to take 40 minutes from Vishwavidyala, which takes over an hour by road.
Once the entire line is functional, Noida will have a direct connectivity to the airport, while people coming from Faridabad can interchange at Kalkaji Mandir and those coming from Gurgaon can take the airport-bound train from Hauz Khas.
Terminal 1, from where domestic flights of Indigo and SpiceJet operate, sees movement of almost 30,000 passengers daily. The airport operator has also planned expansion of Terminal 1 and the capacity of the terminal will be increased to 30 million per annum from 18 million per annum.
Even as one-third of the domestic flights are expected to move to T2, DMRC officials say the airport station will be popular among low-cost air travellers.
Keeping the need of air passengers in mind, the station will have some special features. As passengers are expected to carry luggage, DMRC will connect the arrival and departure terminal with a 90-degree tunnel, which will have walkalators. The lifts at the station will be larger to enable passengers carry their luggage.
“The station box will be among the longest with a length of 312.2 metres. Normally, underground stations are around 260 metres long. The station will have five entry and exit points. While there will be two subways, another entry will be will cater to Mehram Nagar, which is an adjacent residential area. The fourth entry/exit point will be near the police station building and the fifth will be just before the ramp to the departure area of the airport,” said a DMRC spokesperson.
