New Delhi, February 13: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday upheld its single-judge order accepting Delhi International Airport Pvt. Ltd (DIAL)’s decision to partially shift operations of Indigo & SpiceJet from T1 to T2 at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI Airport). The Court asked the airlines to approach DIAL within a week for its decision. DIAL will now decide the time frame by when the airlines have to shift.

On October 21, 2017, DIAL had asked the three airlines- IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir to relocate their operations in "parts" and split their operations by shifting flights to and from some sectors, namely Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, to T2 with effect from January 4, 2018.

While GoAir shifted operations, Indigo and SpiceJet were unwilling to shift. SpiceJet on its part said that rights of T1 cannot be given exclusively to IndiGo Airlines, as it would be anti-competitive and added that it would shift operations if IndiGo also shifts. On the other hand, IndiGo said that option of staying fully in T1 and said if in future its number of passengers exceed the capacity of the terminal, then it will move some of its operations to T2.

The airport operator had said that all other flights of the airlines shall continue to operate from T-1. Earlier while upholding DIAL’s decision, the single judge had given IndiGo and SpiceJet time till February 15 to partially shift their operations.

Indigo- India's biggest airline by market share had appealed against a Delhi high court order upholding DIAL’s direction to airlines to ‘partially’ shift operations. The airline claimed that DIAL had not appropriately considered the inconvenience which would be caused to passengers while arriving at its decision. In December 2017, DIAL came down heavily on IndiGo and asked the airline to not to "teach" it how to run the airport.  Justice A.K. Chawla, after hearing the arguments of IndiGo, DIAL and the Central government, reserved the order on IndiGo's pleas.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 13, 2018 12:27 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).