A new air traffic control (ATC) tower is expected to begin operations in December at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, India.
The 101.9m tower will be managed by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which stated that trial runs will commence shortly.
AAI chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra told media sources: “There is a delay as we have to take care of a lot of things. ATC operation is something that cannot be put on hold.
“We will start the trial run soon and there will be tests for two-three months. After that, parallel operations will start by December and gradually we will shift to the new tower.”
Once the tower becomes operational, air traffic controllers will have a 360° view of the airport, allowing them to see all three runways, aprons and taxiways.
The tower is considerably taller than the airport's existing 60m-high tower, which was built in 1999.
Constructed at a cost of Rs3.5bn ($53.8m), the structure will be the seventh tallest ATC tower in the world.
In April, the Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation unveiled plans to increase the airside capacity of Delhi Airport to 95 movements per hour at peak time in the next three years.
In this regard, UK-based air navigation service provider NATS was consulted to expand the flight handling capacity of the airport.
