SC DISMISSES INDIGO’S PLEA TO SHIFT OPS TO T2

NEW DELHI: Indi Go will have to shift a part of its operations from New Delhi airport’s Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 in the next 24 days after the Supreme Court on Friday refused to interfere with a Delhi high court judgment that had been challenged by India’s largest domestic carrier.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra gave two weeks to Delhi International Airport Pvt. Ltd (DIAL) to work out the particulars of the shift, after which the airline will have 10 more days to move its operations.

DIAL, which manages and operates Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, had last year asked three airlines operating from T1 to shift some of their operations to T2 while expansion work was carried out at T1. Go Air moved all its flights last October, but IndiGo had approached the Delhi high court against the move. SpiceJet, too, has not shifted its operations yet.

On February 13, a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Rekha Palli upheld a December 20 single judge order, rejecting an appeal by the airline, which had complained that the move would disrupt its operations. IndiGo then approached the Supreme Court.

“We are not inclined to interfere,” CJI Misra said on Friday. “We cannot go into such commercial decisions taken to improve facilities. It’s better we do not intervene, or else we won’t know where we land ourselves in,” the bench of Misra and Justice DY Chandrachud added.

DIAL had initially asked IndiGo and SpiceJet to move all its flights operating to and from Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad to T2. It was unclear on Friday if flights to these sectors would move to T2, or if some other formula would be worked out between DIAL and the airlines.

SpiceJet has not made its decision on the move clear, and an official from the airline said that if IndiGo moved to T2, they would have no problem in shifting operations as well. “We are yet to receive the court order. We will comment only after we get it,” an IndiGo spokesperson said.