Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) may extend the preferential treatment accorded to Air India to other airlines and alliances as well, disillusioned with national carrier's lacklustre performance in generating more business for India's showcase airport. 

The GMR-led consortium is looking to promote other carriers, such as IndiGo and Jet Airways or airline alliances, to ensure that more international traffic traverses through its world-class Terminal 3. 

Air India, which enjoys the status of an "anchor airline", has 16-18 aerobridges within easy reach and 56 exclusive check-in counters in the central space of T3. However, with the national carrier's dipping market share and pending dues, DIAL is now looking to extend similar benefits to other airlines as per a report in ET by Anindya Upadhyay.

"In order to develop Delhi into a hub, we will now promote other carriers too...by giving them preferred slots in the following summer and winter schedules. It could also mean differential airport charges for some carriers," said GMR Group CEO Corporate (Airport) P S Nair, adding that the airport will, however, continue to encourage Air India. 

Last year when the new terminal became operational, Air India moved its base to T3 from Mumbai and also withdrew from its hub at Frankfurt. The understanding was that the national carrier would divert its domestic passenger traffic to Delhi to fly them to overseas destinations, thereby helping the airport join the league of international hubs such as Singapore or Hong Kong. 

At present, AI brings 22% of the total passenger traffic followed by Jet Airways 20% and IndiGo 14% while foreign carriers contribute 18% of the total Delhi traffic. 

"IndiGo is strong domestically and now they are flying international too. This opportunity could be very well utilised," another senior DIAL official said. 

DIAL is also wooing global airline alliances to route their traffic from T3. "Goodies for other airlines can be checkin counters closest to domestic security, aerobridges closest to the central node for speedy exit and even good parking bays for aircraft. Therefore, competition for benefits that Air India gets at the T3 can definitely increase," the official said. 

It had recently given CEOs of two global airline alliances a tour of the new terminal to assure them that the airport has the infrastructure to handle more aircraft and passenger traffic. 

"Our aim is to be like, say, the Bangkok airport which is Star Alliance heavy and has a major chunk of its traffic flow contributed by the Alliance carriers. We have strong domestic carriers but not one in the international scenario. 

That's the biggest challenge that we have," he said. The Delhi airport handled 32 million passengers this year, of which 8% were in transit. "DIAL's target is to take this percentage to over 25% in the next five years," he said. In October, transfer passengers numbered nearly 2 lakh, up seven-fold from the time T3 began its operations. 

The Singapore and Dubai airports handle 140,000 and 110,000 passengers daily, respectively. Half of these are transit passengers, contributing 30% to the total airport sales. 

Air India, which is saddled with a debt of Rs 43,000 crore, owes over Rs 200 crore as dues to GMR's Delhi and Hyderabad airports. The airline owes in all Rs 1,143 crore to the Airports Authority of India and five other major airports. 

During the first quarter of the current fiscal, DIAL's operating revenue went up 43% to Rs 355 crore but its earnings before interest tax and depreciation (EBITDA) declined by 20% to Rs 52.5 crore.