Republic Day effect: Delhi Airport’s closure for 6 days to impact thousands of passengers

As if the distress caused by fog wasn’t enough this winter, passengers are about to face further difficulties in travel from January 21 due to the closure of airspace over Delhi, keeping in mind the Republic Day safety protocols.

The government on Tuesday released a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) 1020 hours to 1245 hours for six days from January 21 . The two-hour and twenty-five-minute closure will impact thousands of flights and disrupt connections, leading to delays and cancellations for passengers and handling misconnected passengers for the airlines.

This is for practice, dress rehearsal and the actual Republic Day parade, an annual celebration that includes a parade, flypast and display of culture and military hardware along Kartavya Path. The NOTAM was released today, with just eight days remaining for closure. This will lead to a scramble for airlines to adjust their flights, verify the mis-connecting guests and reroute them or offer refunds and/or changes, an expensive proposition for the airlines.

The impact will be felt by thousands of passengers on a daily basis by means of cancellation, rescheduling, and disruptions.

Airlines can act only when they are officially informed about the NOTAM, and thus, there will be a scramble to adjust or cancel flights and send IRROPS (Irregular Operations) messages among others while working with airports across the country at the same time to handle changes. Retiming flights may not always be possible due to its impact on other airports, and airports like Mumbai are already operating at full capacity. With Delhi Airport also operating at near-full capacity, changes to schedule are hard to come by and the system does not have any slack to handle as many flights before and after the closure.

The impact of this closure will be felt at other airports as well, since aircraft routings don't work in isolation and for passengers that means being impacted with a schedule change for a flight which neither originates nor is destined for Delhi.