Airport operators all over India are facing a challenge of parking all the non-operating aircraft/planes in the airports. The government of India has imposed a lockdown of 21 days starting from March 25, 2020, to April 14, 2020, for curbing down the coronavirus infection rates in the country. There are more than 600 commercial aircraft sitting idle to be parked since no domestic or international flights are operating at the moment. Parking of these planes become a prominent issue because of lack of space in the airports. Aircraft are being parked at non-operational runways because there is no other space left.
Airport Authorities Trying To Use Remote Stands
Airport Council International (ACI), a global aviation body serves 641 members all over the world operating in 173 countries and around 1,953 airports. It also serves 113 members in the Asia-Pacific region, including India. ACI said that there is a severe lack of space in Indian airports to accommodate all the grounded planes. A spokesperson from the ACI Asia Pacific arm said that airports would typically start with parking planes in the remote stands, then will use the maintenance hangers and as a last resort, will use taxiways. Taxiways do not necessarily pose a danger for parking planes unless the size of the aircraft is not bigger than the taxiway itself.
Delhi Airport Managing Parking Operations Smoothly
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) Chairman issued a statement saying that the operations in the Delhi airport for parking planes has been managed smoothly. Every aircraft was accommodated, and there is no issue with parking as of now. The Indira Gandhi International Airport is India’s largest aerodrome and has 194 parking stands for grounded planes. In addition to this, there are also stands available which are used for general aviation purposes. Since fewer flights are taking off at the moment - only the cargo ones, it isn’t a problem to use single-way taxiways for managing two-way traffic as well.
