Declining to comment directly on the idea of having a greenfield airport so close to Delhi, DIAL’s spokesperson Arun Arora said the GMR group would certainly participate in the bidding for the Greater Noida airport when it happens. DIAL has the right of first refusal in the proposed project. This means that in case DIAL’s bid is within 10 per cent of the best bid made, they will get a chance to match it.

“The masterplan we submitted to the Government takes care of potential traffic till the year 2030. The capacity we will build will always be ahead of the demand and we would be able to cater to 100 million passengers by 2026,” Arora said. Senior DIAL officials, requesting anonymity, said the new airport, if commissioned before exhausting the proposed capacity at Delhi, would be disastrous.

Despite the Civil Aviation Ministry’s Policy on Airport Infrastructure (1997), which states that no greenfield airport will normally be allowed within an aerial distance of 150 km of an existing airport, the Jewar airport appears on track.

In fact, the Government has also cleared a greenfield airport at Navi Mumbai despite the fact that it falls within 150-km aerial distance of the existing Mumbai airport. The Ministry is now planning a techno-feasibility study and a detailed simulation study by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) on the project.

The ICAO study, as was done for Navi Mumbai, is imperative to ascertain whether a conflict-free operation of an airport at the proposed location would be feasible alongwith the Indira Gandhi International Airport at Delhi.