Delhi airport gets the longest runway today

ON A LONG RUN: The new runway is expected to nearly double the airport's peak hour capacity .

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New Delhi:The Delhi Airport is all ready to unveil the country's longest runway on Thursday. The runway is more than four thousand meters long which makes it the country's largest one.

The new runway will also have advanced instrument landing system, which allows aircraft to land in visibility as low as 50 metres. DIAL upgraded several new aircraft parking stands to meet this standard.

Over 650,000 tonnes of asphalt concrete has been used, which, according to the DIAL official, could have built 75 km of six-lane expressway.

The new runway is expected to nearly double the airport's peak hour capacity from 35-40 aircraft movements currently to about 75. Currently, the two existing parallel runways handle nearly 700 flights a day.

Yet, the hovering time, which has come down with measures such as adding rapid exit taxiways that allow aircraft to move away from the runway faster, and reducing time between two flight take-offs, is still about 20 minutes.

The runway will be equipped with a new CAT 2 B instrument landing system to facilitate landing during poor visibility. This runway can also handle big aircrafts like the Airbus A380 and also the Antonov AN-225.

The inaugural ceremony will start on Thursday with the landing of an Air India aircraft. Two brand new fire engines are expected to give it a grand water cannon welcome. The first commercial test flight is slated for August 21st.