Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport

If aviation is happening on a large scale anywhere in India, it is in Delhi. Indira Gandhi International – IGI for short – has been the country’s busiest airport since 2009 and has long played in the league of the world’s very biggest hubs. Four runways, three terminals and a schedule in which IndiGo and Air India take off every minute: for spotters, DEL is a place where you see more movements in an hour than at some European airports in a whole day. At the same time, different rules apply here than in the visitors’ park at Munich or Frankfurt – and you need to know them before you unpack your camera.

From RAF Palam to India’s hub

The roots of the airport are military. In 1943, in the middle of World War II, the British built the airfield RAF Palam in the southwest of the city. Civil scheduled traffic still ran through the small Safdarjung airport in the middle of the city at the time. Only in 1962 did scheduled operations move to Palam, because Safdarjung offered too little space for the growing traffic. The ICAO code VIDP still recalls the old name today – the P is generally associated with Palam.

1986 brought the big change: on May 1, the new international Terminal 2 opened, and the airport was named after the prime minister Indira Gandhi, who had been assassinated in 1984. In everyday life, people still often simply say “IGI” or “Delhi Airport.”

The next turning point came in 2006. The Indian government handed operations over to a private consortium, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL). The GMR Group calls the shots, and after the exit of Malaysia Airports and most recently, in 2024, of Fraport it now holds 74 percent; the state-owned Airports Authority of India holds 26 percent and remains the owner of the grounds. Under DIAL, the airport grew massively within a few years: a new runway in 2008, Terminal 3 in 2010, a fourth runway in 2023.

Four runways and a taxiway on stilts

With four runways, Delhi is among the best-equipped airports in Asia. All four runways run roughly east–west, but not quite parallel – that explains the different designations 09/27, 10/28 and 11/29.

The most spectacular structure is the Eastern Cross Taxiway. Together with the fourth runway, a pair of elevated taxiways about 2.1 kilometers long was opened in July 2023 – the first of its kind in India. It connects the runways in the north with the terminal area in the south without aircraft having to cross an active runway. According to figures from the planning phase, this shortens the taxi distance for the aircraft concerned by up to about seven kilometers. For you, this results in an unusual subject: aircraft taxiing on a bridge structure.

Which runway is being used for takeoffs and which for landings at any moment depends, as everywhere, on wind, traffic volume and air traffic control requirements. Check that live in a flight tracker before you commit. The basics are covered in the article Understanding the runway direction in use at an airport.

Three terminals, two sides

The grounds are split in two, and that belongs in every plan. Terminal 1 is in the northeast, Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 in the southwest – in between lie the runways and several kilometers of road.

Terminal 3 is the centerpiece. It entered service on July 3, 2010, shortly before the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, and at opening was designed for about 34 million passengers a year. The international airlines and Air India are handled here, and the widebody aircraft stand at the jet bridges here.

Terminal 2 dates from 1986 and today serves mainly domestic traffic. After a renovation it is being used for flights again; which airlines and flights are handled there at any given time changes with the schedule.

Terminal 1 is the domestic terminal of the low-cost airlines. The former buildings 1C and 1D were converted in recent years into one large, integrated terminal designed for up to about 40 million passengers a year.

Air India: the Tata airline’s home hub

For long-haul fans, Delhi is above all one thing: the most important hub of Air India. Since 2022, the airline has belonged again to the Tata Group, which once founded it, and has since reorganized its group companies. The former Vistara was merged into Air India at the end of 2024, and the low-cost subsidiaries were bundled under Air India Express. The page on the Air India Group offers an overview of the structure.

On the apron at Terminal 3 you see the airline’s widebody fleet: Boeing 777-300ER, the 787-8 and 787-9 as well as the Airbus A350-900, the airline’s youngest widebody type. On short- and medium-haul routes the airline flies aircraft of the A320 family. Which types are flying which routes at any moment changes with deliveries and fleet changes – as of October 2026, a look at current fleet lists is worthwhile.

Air India is a member of the Star Alliance. That is why partners like Lufthansa, which serves Delhi from Frankfurt and Munich, regularly turn up in Delhi. To tell the A350 and 787, which look alike at first glance, apart, the article A350 or Boeing 787? helps you.

IndiGo: the fleet that never stops

If Air India shapes the long haul, IndiGo shapes the masses. India’s largest airline has one of its most important bases in Delhi, and its aircraft of the A320neo family are everywhere on the aprons. You see the A320neo and the longer A321neo in quick succession, complemented in regional service by the ATR 72-600 turboprops. On some international routes, IndiGo also uses leased widebody aircraft – here too, as of October 2026, the picture can change quickly.

For spotters, the appeal of IndiGo lies less in the individual aircraft than in the quantity – and in the discipline you need to tell the many identically painted jets apart. Without the registration, nothing works here. Indian aircraft carry the country prefix VT-, followed by three letters. Whether a jet is a neo or still a ceo, you can tell from the engines and details; the article A320neo or ceo? shows what matters.

Who else flies in Delhi

Besides the two top dogs, other Indian airlines serve the airport. SpiceJet has a base in Delhi and flies Boeing 737s and the Dash 8-400 turboprop, among others. Akasa Air relies on the Boeing 737 MAX 8. The state-owned regional airline Alliance Air comes on top of that.

Internationally, the selection is large. The Gulf carriers, which connect Delhi with their own hubs, are especially present: Emirates from Dubai Airport, Qatar Airways from Doha and Etihad from Abu Dhabi. From Europe come Lufthansa, British Airways, Air France and Turkish Airlines, among others, and from Southeast Asia, for example, Singapore Airlines. Which airline sends which type depends on season and schedule.

Spotting in Delhi: different from Europe

Here lies the most important difference from European airports. A visitors’ hill, an observation deck or a tolerated spotter spot like in Munich does not exist in Delhi. Airports are considered sensitive facilities in India, and on the grounds in Palam the Indian Air Force is also present. If you stand at the fence with a long telephoto lens, you have to expect to be approached, checked or sent away – in the worst case with considerably more unpleasant consequences.

That doesn’t mean you can’t photograph aircraft in Delhi. It means you have to assess the situation realistically and stick to the rules of the game. What generally applies in India and what experiences other spotters have had is summarized in the article Plane spotting in India.

Which options remain? Three approaches have proven themselves if you are traveling through Delhi anyway:

Fog, smog and heat

The weather is a chapter of its own in Delhi. In winter, especially from December to January, dense fog often lies over the North Indian plain, frequently mixed with smog. The airport has adapted: three of its four runways are equipped for CAT III-B approaches, and Delhi is among the few airports in India with this equipment. Even so, extreme conditions lead to delays and diversions.

For photos, that means: in winter in the morning you sometimes can’t see as far as the end of the runway, and at noon it often gets better. In early summer, by contrast, it gets very hot, and heat shimmer softens shots over long distances. In the monsoon season, heavy rainfall sometimes brings dramatic cloud pictures – but also wet equipment. How to deal with difficult light and weather is explained in the article Plane spotting in bad weather.

Hub waves and the daily rhythm

Delhi is a connecting hub, and you notice that in the schedule. Air India bunches feeders and long-haul flights into waves, and IndiGo links domestic destinations on a conveyor-belt basis. Many long-haul flights toward Europe and North America depart at the edges of the day or at night, so the very biggest jets aren’t always on the move in the best light. How such waves arise and how you use them for your planning is covered in the article on hub waves at hubs.

Flight movements are spread across the whole day. More than 470,000 takeoffs and landings in fiscal year 2025/26 mean, arithmetically, well over a thousand movements a day. So it is rarely boring at this airport – what matters more is whether you find a spot from which you can follow the action legally.

Cargo, expansion and the competition from Jewar

Delhi is also an important cargo airport. In fiscal year 2025/26 it handled just over 1.1 million tonnes of air cargo, a large part of it in the belly of widebody aircraft, plus pure cargo airlines with their own aircraft.

In expansion, DIAL has done a lot in recent years: the fourth runway, the elevated taxiway and the merged Terminal 1. Long-term expansion plans provide for further terminals, whose construction is tied to the development of passenger numbers. At the same time, the airport is getting company: at the end of March 2026, Noida International Airport was inaugurated in Jewar to the southeast, and scheduled service started there in June 2026. It is the second major airport of the capital region. How traffic is split between the two sites will become clear in the coming years.

Delhi compared

If you compare Delhi with the big hubs in the Gulf, you quickly notice the difference: Dubai and Doha live off the transfer traffic of a single big airline, while Delhi lives off a huge domestic market with two dominant carriers. Singapore Changi Airport offers a similarly lively picture with completely different conditions.

From a German perspective, Frankfurt and Munich are the bridge to Delhi – Lufthansa flies nonstop from both airports. If you want to combine spotting with a trip, you will find ideas in the article Plane spotting on vacation.

Conclusion

Indira Gandhi International is the airport where you experience Indian aviation in all its size: four runways, an elevated taxiway, Air India with 777, 787 and A350 at its home hub and an IndiGo fleet whose aircraft take off and land in a seemingly endless sequence. For spotters that means: there are movements here almost around the clock.

What sets Delhi apart from European airports are the conditions. There is no official spotter spot, the security culture is strict, and the weather ranges from winter fog to summer heat. If you accept that, collect sightings from the terminal, hotel or aircraft window and note the registrations cleanly, you still take a bursting collection home from Delhi.