Last verified: August 2026. Terminal allocations, metro timings and airport charges change more often than anything else on this page. Verify those three against your airline and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) before you travel, however recently this page changed.
Indira Gandhi International Airport has three passenger terminals, all of them operating, and they are not next door to each other. Terminal 1 sits about 7 km by road from Terminals 2 and 3. It is a separate campus with its own approach road, its own metro station and its own forecourt. Turning up at the wrong one is not a five-minute correction. It is a missed flight.
That matters more in 2026 than it did two years ago, because the terminal map changed twice in 18 months. Terminal 1 reopened at full capacity in April 2025 after a major expansion. Terminal 2 closed that same month for a rebuild and reopened on Oct. 26, 2025. On that date the largest carriers at Delhi redistributed their flights across all three buildings. If your mental picture of IGI dates from before October 2025 (and most published advice still does), it is out of date.
This page tells you which terminal your flight uses, how to reach that specific terminal, how long to allow, what happens when you land and what to do if you get it wrong.
Find your terminal first
Most large carriers at Delhi now use a system where the flight number itself tells you the terminal. Learn the rule for your airline and you can check your own booking in seconds.
| Airline | Flight number pattern | Terminal |
|---|---|---|
| IndiGo | 6E 2000 to 6E 2999 | T2 |
| IndiGo | 6E 5000 to 6E 5999, plus all international departures | T3 |
| IndiGo | All other domestic flights | T1 |
| Air India | Four digits starting with 1 (e.g. AI 1737, AI 1787) | T2 |
| Air India | All remaining domestic flights, plus every international flight | T3 |
| Air India Express | Four digits starting with 9 (e.g. AI 9501, AI 9550) | T1 |
| SpiceJet | SG 8000 to SG 8999, plus all international flights | T3 |
| SpiceJet | All other domestic flights | T1 |
| Akasa Air | No fixed rule: predominantly T1, with some flights at T2 | Check your boarding pass |
| All foreign airlines | Every international operation at Delhi | T3 |
The IndiGo and Air India allocations took effect on Oct. 26, 2025. Air India moved 60 of its roughly 180 daily Delhi domestic departures to Terminal 2 and renumbered them specifically so passengers could identify the terminal from the ticket. SpiceJet’s flight-number split predates the 2025 reshuffle and, as of August 2026, still stands as the airline publishes it.
Two rules cover everyone the table does not:
- Every international departure from Delhi leaves from Terminal 3. There are no exceptions. If you are flying to another country from Delhi on any airline, T3 is your terminal.
- If your airline has no published flight-number rule (Akasa Air is the notable case), the airline sets the allocation per flight and can change it between bookings. Your boarding pass, issued at web check-in roughly 48 hours before departure, is the answer.
In one line each: T1 is domestic only and physically separate. T2 is domestic only and sits beside T3. T3 handles all international traffic plus a large share of domestic.
One caveat that overrides everything else on this page: your boarding pass and your airline’s own SMS or app notification are the final authority. Terminal allocations at Delhi have moved three times since 2024 and will move again. Check them the evening before you travel, and check again if the airline reschedules your flight. Once you have landed and cleared the terminal, routes into South Delhi from the airport become the next question, but only after you have reached the right building.
What changed in 2025
Three things happened in quick succession, and together they invalidated most of what people wrote about IGI before 2025.
April 2025: Terminal 1 came back at four times its old size. The expanded T1 began full operations on April 15, 2025. Its floor area went from 55,740 square metres to 206,950 square metres, and its annual capacity rose to 40 million passengers. The new building also merged arrivals and departures, which had previously occupied physically separate blocks. Those figures are the airport operator’s, published at reopening.
April to October 2025: the operator shut and rebuilt Terminal 2. With T1 able to absorb the traffic, T2 closed for roughly six months of reconstruction.
Oct. 26, 2025: Terminal 2 reopened, and everything moved. The rebuilt T2 came back with self bag-drop, a redesigned roof with skylights and six new passenger boarding bridges using autonomous docking technology, which the operator describes as the first such installation in India.
Why the split looks arbitrary is easier to understand once you know the constraint behind it. Delhi’s international traffic has been growing faster than its international capacity. Terminal 3 is the only building at IGI equipped for international departures, so freeing up space there meant pushing domestic flights out: some to the rebuilt T2, some to the expanded T1. The flight-number system was the airlines’ way of making a genuinely complicated reshuffle legible to passengers.
The practical consequence: an article, a video or a friend’s advice from 2023 or 2024 will tell you confidently that IndiGo flies from T1 and T3, and that Air India flies from T3. Both statements are now wrong in ways that will put you at the wrong terminal.
Terminal 1
T1 handles domestic flights only. After the 2024-25 expansion it is one of the largest domestic terminals in the country.
| Specification | Figure |
|---|---|
| Floor area | 206,950 sq m (from 55,740 sq m) |
| Annual capacity | 40 million passengers |
| Check-in counters | 100 |
| Self bag-drop units | 36 |
| Self-service (CUSS) kiosks | 108 |
| Automated tray retrieval security lanes | 20 |
| Baggage handling | 6,000 bags per hour |
| Additional reclaim carousels | 10 |
The airport operator published these figures at the April 2025 reopening.
What that scale means in practice: T1 now processes at genuinely high volume, so the 20 automated tray retrieval lanes matter more to your timing than the counter count does. Security is where domestic passengers lose time at Delhi, not check-in. With 36 self bag-drop units, a passenger travelling with only cabin baggage can clear the landside portion in minutes.
Two features matter operationally. First, arrivals and departures now share one building, which removes the old confusion between the 1C and 1D blocks. You no longer need to know which block your flight uses before you arrive. Second, and this is the part most travellers do not know: T1 has its own metro station.
Terminal 1-IGI Airport station opened on May 29, 2018, on the Magenta Line. It connects to the T1-D departure area through Gate No. 1 via a 370 m subway fitted with travelators. It is not on the Airport Express. If you are travelling to T1 and you board the orange Airport Express expecting to arrive there, you will end up at Terminal 3, on the far side of the airfield, with a shuttle ride still ahead of you. The Magenta Line runs a long way east through the city, and you should check every Magenta Line stop between Botanical Garden and Janakpuri West against your starting point before you assume the airport metro is the faster option.
Terminal 2
T2 is domestic-only and sits immediately beside Terminal 3. It opened in 1986 and now operates as a transfer-oriented domestic terminal handling around 15 million passengers a year. Treat that figure as approximate: the operator has not published a revised capacity since the 2025 rebuild.
The refurbishment delivered self bag-drop facilities, a reworked ceiling and skylight design, and the six autonomous-docking boarding bridges mentioned above. Several carriers now run a slice of their domestic network through it.
For orientation: T2 is by some distance the smallest of the three terminals, which is its main practical advantage. Walking distances from security to gate are short, the concourse is easy to read, and the terminal is far less prone to the pre-security congestion that builds at T3 during evening peaks. If your flight is a T2 flight, you need less buffer than you would at either of the others.
The practical warning for T2: it has no metro station of its own. There is no Airport Express stop at T2, and no Magenta Line stop either. If you are travelling to T2 by metro, you ride the Airport Express to the IGI Airport station at T3 and cross over from there. It is a short crossing, but a crossing nonetheless, and one you should build into your timing. Anyone unfamiliar with how Delhi’s lines interlock will find the full Delhi Metro network and its interchanges easier to plan against than a single-line map.
Terminal 3
T3 is the largest terminal in India and the only one at Delhi that handles international flights. It also carries a substantial domestic load.
| Specification | Figure |
|---|---|
| Floor area | 5.4 million sq ft (about 502,000 sq m) |
| Opened | July 2010 |
| Aerobridges | 78, of which 3 can take an A380 |
| Check-in counters | 168 |
| Immigration counters | 95 (49 outbound) |
| Baggage handling | 12,800 bags per hour |
| Building | Nine storeys |
Specifications as recorded for the terminal’s construction and commissioning.
The layout is straightforward: departures upstairs, arrivals downstairs. Distance is the part that catches people out. Each of T3’s two piers runs about 1.2 km. A gate at the far end of a pier is a genuine walk from security, and the terminal’s buggy service is limited. If the airline announces your gate late, which happens routinely at Delhi, you can lose 15 minutes to walking alone. This is the strongest argument for arriving earlier at T3 than you would at T1 or T2, and it applies to domestic passengers at T3 just as much as international ones.
On capacity, published figures differ. The terminal opened in 2010 with a design capacity of around 34 million passengers a year; sources now commonly cite about 40 million following internal reconfiguration. Neither figure changes anything you need to do, but the higher number you will see quoted elsewhere is not the original design specification.
T3 is also the terminal the Airport Express serves directly, which makes it the easiest of the three to reach without a car. That point matters when you are weighing which metro lines actually run through South Delhi against a road journey.
Terminal comparison at a glance
Carrier allocations as published in August 2026. This row ages faster than any other in the table.
| Terminal 1 | Terminal 2 | Terminal 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operations | Domestic only | Domestic only | International + domestic |
| Approximate annual capacity | 40 million | ~15 million | 34 to 40 million (see note above) |
| Relative size | Very large | Smallest (shortest walks) | Largest (1.2 km piers) |
| Direct metro station | Yes (Magenta Line) | None | Yes (Airport Express) |
| Adjacent terminal | None (~7 km by road) | T3 | T2 |
| Typical carriers (August 2026) | IndiGo (most domestic), Air India Express, SpiceJet (most domestic), Akasa Air | IndiGo 6E 2xxx, Air India AI 1xxx | All international, IndiGo 6E 5xxx, most Air India domestic, SpiceJet SG 8xxx |
Moving between terminals
This is the section that costs people flights, so read it before you assume a transfer is trivial.
Start with the geography. T2 and T3 are adjacent. The crossing between them takes under 10 minutes by shuttle, and many passengers with light baggage simply walk. T1 is a different matter entirely. The shortest driving route between T3 and T1 measures 6.6 km, though the shuttle’s own routing along terminal service roads is closer to the 8 km usually quoted. Either way, the ride takes about 20 to 25 minutes depending on traffic.
Now the distinction that matters most: every inter-terminal transfer at Delhi is landside. There is no airside connection between T1 and the other terminals, and none between T2 and T3. You exit the secure area of one terminal, travel on public roads and re-enter security at the other. That means a fresh security queue. On separate tickets it means a fresh check-in and bag-drop as well.
Your options
| Option | Route | Fare | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airport inter-terminal shuttle | T1 ↔ T2 ↔ T3 | Free with a connecting boarding pass; ₹25 otherwise | T1↔T2/T3: 20-25 min · T2↔T3: under 10 min |
| DMRC feeder bus | T1 ↔ T2 only | ₹40 | Varies with traffic |
| Metro | T1 (Magenta) ↔ T3 (Airport Express) | Standard metro fares | Requires an interchange; usually slower than the shuttle |
| Taxi / app cab | Any | Metered or app fare | Similar to shuttle, subject to forecourt access |
The airport operator publishes these shuttle details.
Which one to actually take. For T2 to T3 or T3 to T2, walk if you have cabin baggage only and 40 minutes in hand; take the shuttle otherwise. The time difference is negligible and the shuttle removes the risk of misreading the signage. For anything involving T1, take the airport shuttle, not the metro and not a cab. The metro requires an interchange and is slower. A cab is at the mercy of forecourt congestion and costs money for no time saved. The shuttle is free with a connecting boarding pass, runs around the clock and drops you at the terminal entrance rather than the far end of a car park.
The shuttle is air-conditioned and runs 24 hours a day. To ride free, show your connecting boarding pass or ticket at the shuttle point and collect a coupon.
Where to catch the shuttle
- Terminal 1: Lane 1, in front of the VIP Lounge, after you exit Arrivals
- Terminal 2: under the departure ramp, near the VIP parking (CTR)
- Terminal 3: Pillar No. 10, Forecourt Lane 1
A note on frequency. The airport publishes a departure every 20 minutes. Air India’s own passenger information says every 10 minutes. Both are current published figures and they do not agree. Plan on 20 minutes. If a bus turns up sooner, you have gained time rather than lost it.
How much connection time you actually need
The airline sets minimum connection times, not the airport. Air India publishes the following for Delhi:
| Connection type | Minimum |
|---|---|
| Domestic → Domestic | 45 minutes |
| Domestic → International | 90 minutes |
| International → Domestic | 90 minutes |
| International → International | 60 minutes |
Treat these as the airline’s floor, not as a comfortable target. They assume a same-terminal connection with baggage through-checked. If your itinerary moves you between terminals, and particularly if it moves you to or from T1, add the shuttle time, a second security queue and a margin for Delhi traffic on top. Other carriers publish their own figures, and they differ.
If you are booking two separate tickets rather than one connecting itinerary, none of these minimums protect you. Nothing is through-checked, no one is holding the second flight, and you should be budgeting three hours between arrival and the next departure, not 90 minutes.
Travelling with assistance or reduced mobility
Wheelchair and special assistance at Indian airports is free by regulation. The requirement sits in the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s Civil Aviation Requirement, Section 3, Series M, Part I (2014). No airline may charge you for it, and the entitlement covers transport from the terminal entrance to the aircraft seat, baggage help, priority security clearance and priority boarding.
Two things determine whether it works smoothly at Delhi.
Book it in advance through the airline, not the airport. Most Indian carriers ask for at least 48 hours’ notice so that ground handling can roster staff and equipment. Some accept 24 hours. Booking the flight is not the same as booking the assistance. It is a separate request, and with at least one carrier you must still telephone to confirm an online request.
Assistance does not automatically follow you across a terminal transfer on a separate ticket. On a single booking with one airline, ground staff meet you on arrival and escort you to the connecting flight; they handle the transfer. On two separate tickets, or across two different airlines, you must book the assistance with each carrier independently. You will also need to collect your own baggage, cross terminals and check in again. For that combination at Delhi, particularly if T1 is one end of the transfer, four hours between flights is a realistic minimum rather than a cautious one.
If a medical situation develops on arrival rather than in the air, all three terminals have on-site medical facilities, and South Delhi’s major hospitals are 30 to 50 minutes away by road in normal traffic. The south-western cluster sits closer to T1 than to T3.
Reaching the airport by metro
The most common metro mistake at Delhi is assuming that “the airport metro” reaches the airport. It reaches one terminal.
| Terminal | Line | Station |
|---|---|---|
| T1 | Magenta | Terminal 1-IGI Airport |
| T2 | None | No station. Use T3 and cross over. |
| T3 | Airport Express (Orange) | IGI Airport |
The Airport Express
The Airport Express Line runs 22.7 km from New Delhi to Yashobhoomi Dwarka Sector 25, stopping at:
New Delhi → Shivaji Stadium → Dhaula Kuan → Aerocity → IGI Airport (T3) → Dwarka Sector 21 → Yashobhoomi Dwarka Sector 25
A single journey from New Delhi to the airport costs ₹60 and takes roughly 15 to 19 minutes. From the airport to Dwarka Sector 21 the fare is ₹21.
On first and last trains, published sources conflict. The airport’s own information lists the first departure at 4:45 a.m. and the last at 11:30 p.m. from both ends. Other published sources give 5 a.m. and 11:40 p.m. The gap is small but it is exactly the gap that matters if you have a 6 a.m. departure or a flight landing near midnight. Check DMRC’s station-level timetable for the day you travel rather than relying on either figure, and if your flight sits close to the edge of the service window, plan a road journey instead.
What this means from South Delhi
Neither airport line runs through the residential core of South Delhi. The Airport Express touches the area’s western edge at Dhaula Kuan and Aerocity; the Magenta Line clips its southern belt. For most South Delhi addresses the realistic metro option is an interchange journey, commonly via the Yellow Line, or a short road trip to Dhaula Kuan and the Airport Express from there. Yellow Line stations from Samaypur Badli to Millennium City Centre will show you where that interchange makes sense from your end.
Dwarka Sector 21 functions as an interchange in its own right: it links the Airport Express to the Blue Line, which is what makes the orange line genuinely useful to anyone approaching from West Delhi rather than central Delhi. It is also why flats available across Dwarka tend to appeal to tenants who fly often. The sub-corridor puts them a single ride from the terminal.
Reaching the airport by road
Distance to IGI is stable. Duration is not. The honest answer to “how far is the airport” is a range that depends entirely on when you leave.
The corridors that matter
| Coming from | Typical approach |
|---|---|
| Greater Kailash, Saket, Hauz Khas, Malviya Nagar | Outer Ring Road west, then NH-48 / Airport Road |
| Jasola, Okhla, Sarita Vihar, New Friends Colony | Mathura Road north-west, then Ring Road and NH-48 |
| Vasant Kunj, Vasant Vihar, Munirka | Direct via NH-48, the shortest runs to IGI in the city |
| Mehrauli, Chhatarpur, Ghitorni | Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road, then NH-48 north |
| Gurugram | NH-48 north, often the fastest approach outside peak hours |
| Noida, East Delhi | Ring Road via Ashram, or DND and Ring Road |
People use Delhi locality names loosely, and two addresses both described as “Saket” can sit on opposite sides of a major road with very different approaches to the airport. Checking pincodes across South Delhi is the quickest way to establish which pocket you are actually starting from before you commit to a corridor.
Outer Ring Road, South Delhi’s main east-west artery carries most of the traffic heading west toward the airport, and it is the road that determines whether your run takes 35 minutes or 80. Approaching from the south-east, Mathura Road as the approach from Jasola and Okhla feeds into the same system a few kilometres further east.
If you want measured door-to-door figures rather than corridors, the measured airport run to Greater Kailash works through one South Delhi address in detail, and the method transfers to most others.
Drop-off, pick-up and parking
All three terminals have a departure-level forecourt for drop-offs. These are for setting down only. The airport does not permit waiting, and enforcement is active. If you are collecting someone, use the designated pick-up zones or the car parks rather than circling the departure ramp.
All three terminals offer paid parking, charged by duration, with short-stay and longer-stay options. Rates change, and third-party sites do not report them reliably. Research could not trace several widely circulated figures to the airport operator, so no rupee figure appears here. Check the current tariff on the airport’s own parking page before you plan a long stay, particularly if you are leaving a car for more than a day.
App cabs have designated pickup zones that differ by terminal, and signage points to them from arrivals. At T3 the zone sits on the ground floor of the multi-level car park, a five-to-ten-minute walk from the terminal building. At T1 and T2, signs mark the zones at the forecourt. Follow the signage rather than the app’s map pin, which is frequently wrong at all three terminals.
For onward travel that does not involve a cab, the interchange at Sarai Kale Khan links rail, inter-state bus and metro services in one place, and is a practical target if you are heading out of Delhi rather than into it.
How early should you arrive?
There is no airport-wide rule. Check-in closes when the airline says it closes, and airlines differ.
Air India, as a published example, closes check-in 75 minutes before departure for international flights and 60 minutes before departure for all other flights. That is the counter closing, not the recommended arrival time.
The reverse-clock method
Rather than memorising an arrival time, build one. Start at the check-in cut-off your airline publishes and subtract, in this order:
- Terminal walk: 15 minutes at T3, 10 at T1, 5 at T2
- Security queue: 20 minutes off-peak, 40 at a morning or evening peak
- Bag drop or check-in: 10 minutes with self bag-drop, 30 at a staffed counter in peak
- Road journey: at the worst plausible traffic for that hour, not the average
- Buffer: 30 minutes, non-negotiable
The result is your leaving time. The method transfers to any airport; only the first three numbers change.
Applied to Delhi, it produces roughly this:
| Situation | Practical arrival target |
|---|---|
| Domestic, T1 or T2, hand baggage only | 2 hours before departure |
| Domestic, T3 | 2 hours 15 minutes (the walk to the gate is longer) |
| International, T3 | 3 hours |
| Any flight requiring a terminal change | Add 60 to 90 minutes to the above |
| Peak fog season, December to January | Add 30 minutes for the road journey alone |
These arrival targets are this site’s synthesis from the airline cut-offs and terminal geography above, not airline policy. The published cut-off is the only binding number.
DigiYatra facial-recognition entry works across Delhi’s terminals and does reduce time at the entry gate and boarding, but it does not shorten the security screening queue or the walk to your gate. Treat it as a convenience, not as a reason to leave later.
When leaving at 3 a.m. is the wrong answer
For a very early departure from an address in east, south-east or outer South Delhi, the road journey at 3 a.m. is fast but the sleep loss is total, and there is no metro running to fall back on. Aerocity is the alternative most frequent flyers eventually adopt: a hotel and office district one Airport Express stop from T3, about three minutes by train, and a short road hop from all three terminals. Pre-positioning there the night before converts a 3 a.m. departure into a 5 a.m. one and removes traffic from the equation entirely. The maths works when the flight is early, the fog risk is high, or a missed departure is expensive.
Fog season: what actually happens
Delhi’s late-December-to-January fog is the single most predictable cause of a ruined itinerary in Indian aviation, and travellers widely misunderstand it.
All four of IGI’s runways are equipped for CAT III instrument landings, which is why Delhi keeps operating in conditions that shut other Indian airports. Only six airports in the country have full CAT III capability at all. But CAT III is not the same as zero visibility. A CAT III B landing needs a minimum of about 75 metres of runway visual range; a take-off needs around 125 metres. Below those thresholds, a CAT III airport stops too.
The bigger problem is throughput rather than closure. Delhi handles more than 1,500 aircraft movements a day, which in normal conditions means roughly one movement a minute. Under low-visibility procedures that spacing stretches to around three minutes. Even a fog episode that never quite closes the airport cuts its capacity by roughly two-thirds for five or six hours, and the backlog that creates propagates through the rest of the day and often into the next.
What this means for your decisions in that window: morning departures are the most exposed, a same-day connection through Delhi in early January carries real risk, and an aircraft and crew certified for CAT III does not protect you if the airport ahead of you is not. South Delhi’s winter fog window affects your road journey to the airport at the same time, which is why the arrival-target table above adds 30 minutes for the season on the ground journey alone.
If you are at the wrong terminal
It happens most often to people who booked months ago, before the October 2025 reallocation, and never rechecked.
- Confirm the correct terminal immediately: from the airline app or the boarding pass, not from signage or a passer-by.
- Assess the gap honestly. T2 to T3, or T3 to T2, is recoverable with an hour in hand. T1 to T3, or T3 to T1, needs closer to 90 minutes once you account for the shuttle, traffic and a second security queue.
- Go straight to the shuttle point listed earlier for the terminal you are standing in. Do not queue at a counter first. The staff at the wrong terminal cannot check you in for a flight departing from another one.
- If the airline has already accepted your bag at the wrong terminal, or if you are past the check-in cut-off, stop and speak to the airline’s staff before travelling. At that point the decision is theirs, and moving terminals without telling them can make a recoverable situation worse.
- If you will not make it, call the airline while you are still moving. Airlines treat a rebooking requested before departure very differently from a no-show reported afterwards.
Arriving at IGI: what happens after you land
Almost every page about Delhi airport addresses people leaving. Here is the other half.
International arrivals at T3
Aircraft park at T3, disembark, and the walk to immigration follows the same 1.2-kilometre pier geometry that makes departures long. Allow 15 minutes on foot before you reach the first queue.
Immigration. Foreign nationals arriving in India complete an e-arrival card rather than the old paper form. The airport introduced the digital version on Oct. 1, 2025, and completing it online before you land removes a step at the counter. Indian passport holders and OCI cardholders can use the automated e-gates if they have enrolled in the Fast Track Immigration-Trusted Traveller Programme, launched at Delhi in June 2024. Enrolment is free, open from age 7, needs six months of passport validity and takes roughly two weeks to a month to approve. At the gate you scan your passport and boarding pass, then clear on face and fingerprint. If you fly into India more than twice a year, it is the single highest-return piece of admin available to you.
Baggage and customs. Reclaim sits below immigration. Customs runs the standard two-channel system: green if you have nothing to declare and are within your allowance, red if you do not. Trolleys are free.
Currency. One timing trap catches people out: if you need to convert rupees back into foreign currency on a future departure, do it before clearing security, not after. Exchange counters exist on both sides but the landside options are better.
Getting out of the airport
The order in which you meet the options is not the order of their quality.
| Option | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Prepaid taxi | Delhi Police booth outside arrivals | The safe default at any hour. Fixed fare, receipt issued, vehicle assigned |
| App cab (Uber, Ola) | T3: ground floor of the multi-level car park, 5-10 min walk. T1/T2: signposted forecourt zones | Cheaper off-peak, surge-priced at peak, and the pickup point is often not where the app pin says |
| Airport Express metro | T3 only, from the arrivals level | ₹60 to New Delhi, roughly 15 to 19 minutes. Not running in the overnight window |
| Magenta Line metro | T1 only, via the Gate 1 subway | Useful for south and east Delhi destinations |
| Inter-terminal shuttle | All terminals | Free with a connecting boarding pass |
The one warning that matters. People offering taxis, hotel transfers and “prepaid” cabs will approach you inside and just outside the arrivals hall. None of them are the official service. The Delhi Police prepaid booth is a fixed counter with a queue and a printed receipt; anyone approaching you is not it. Walk past, join the queue and take the receipt. This is the most common way a first arrival in Delhi goes wrong.
The late-night gap. The Airport Express does not run through the small hours, and neither does the Magenta Line. A flight landing at 1 a.m. leaves you with prepaid taxi or app cab as the only realistic options. Budget for that rather than discovering it at the station gate.
Where you are heading shapes the choice. For the business districts, the office cluster at Jasola District Centre is a straight run down the Ring Road and Mathura Road corridor. For residential South Delhi, prepaid taxi is usually simpler than a metro journey with an interchange and a last-mile leg at the far end.
IGI in 2026: scale and standing
The reorganisation described above did not happen for its own sake. It happened because Delhi is running close to its limits.
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Passengers handled, 2025 | 78+ million |
| Global rank by passenger traffic | 11th busiest; the only Indian airport in the world top 20 |
| Runways | 4 operational (the only Indian airport with four) |
| Fourth runway | Operational July 14, 2023; 4.4 km, parallel to runway 11/29 on the southern side |
| Eastern Cross Taxiway | Dual elevated taxiway, first of its kind in India; about 55,000 tonnes of CO₂ saved annually |
| Designed capacity after expansion | 109 million passengers per year, up from around 70 million |
| Skytrax 2026 | 28th globally (up from 32nd); Best Airport in India & South Asia for the 8th consecutive year; 3rd worldwide among airports handling more than 70 million passengers |
Traffic and ranking figures from Airports Council International’s 2025 data as reported in the business press; awards from the Skytrax World Airport Awards 2026.
The Eastern Cross Taxiway is the piece of infrastructure most travellers benefit from without noticing. Before it existed, aircraft landing on the northern runways and parking at T3 taxied a long way around. The elevated taxiway lets them cross directly over the road below, cutting taxi time and, with it, the fuel burned while you sit on the tarmac after landing.
What you actually pay
The departing domestic passenger pays a User Development Fee of ₹129, which the aviation tariff regulator set for the control period running from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2029. The airport charges international UDF at differentiated rates by class of travel. The regulator’s tariff order sets out the current figures, and this page does not reproduce them, because the numbers circulating on travel sites do not match it. In practice your ticket price already includes the fee, so it is not something you pay at the airport.
If you have hours to fill between flights and are willing to leave the airport, South Delhi’s larger malls sit within a 30-to-45-minute run in normal traffic, and the twelfth-century minaret at Mehrauli is closer to IGI than most visitors expect. Neither is advisable on a layover under six hours.
Living near IGI: what it actually means for South Delhi renters
For a small but real group of tenants, airport reach is a genuine housing criterion rather than a nice-to-have. Cabin crew and pilots on early sign-ons, hotel and hospitality staff working the Aerocity belt, consultants flying weekly, and anyone whose employer is in the airport’s commercial zone all make this trade consciously.
The geography is simple. The shortest airport runs in South Delhi belong to the western belt. Vasant Kunj, Vasant Vihar and Munirka sit directly on the NH-48 corridor. Rental flats in Vasant Kunj are the obvious starting point for anyone optimising for that run, and what living in Vasant Kunj is actually like is the sanity check on whether the rest of the locality suits you.
Closer still, Mahipalpur’s rental stock sits almost at the airport perimeter, which is why it draws so much aviation and hospitality tenancy. It is a working-airport neighbourhood rather than a quiet residential one, and rents there reflect proximity rather than amenity.
Now the trade-off, stated plainly. Optimising for the airport usually costs you centrality. What Greater Kailash offers day to day and Saket’s residential pockets and commercial core both deliver far more in markets, restaurants, schools and hospitals. They pay for it with a longer, less predictable airport run. Chhatarpur and Mehrauli sit further out again but connect to NH-48 through the Mehrauli-Gurgaon corridor, which can make them faster to the airport than their distance suggests at off-peak hours.
For most tenants, the honest advice is that airport proximity should be a tiebreaker, not a primary filter. You will make the airport run a few dozen times a year. You will make the office, school and grocery run daily. If you are still narrowing down, every named locality in South Delhi is a better place to start than a distance-to-IGI table.
And if late arrivals are a regular part of your schedule, what crime statistics say about South Delhi belongs alongside the commute maths, because the question of getting home at 2 a.m. is a different one from the question of getting to the terminal at 6 a.m.
Frequently asked questions
Are Delhi’s Terminal 1, 2 and 3 in the same building complex?
No. Terminals 2 and 3 are adjacent and function as one complex. Terminal 1 is a separate campus about 7 km away by road, with its own approach road, forecourt and metro station. Treat T1 as a different airport for planning purposes.
Can I walk between Terminal 2 and Terminal 3?
Many passengers do. They are close enough for a short walk, and the airport describes the crossing as a short walk or shuttle ride. But it is a landside crossing: you leave the secure area and re-enter security at the other terminal. With heavy baggage, a tight connection or any mobility constraint, take the shuttle instead.
Does the Airport Express Line go to Terminal 1?
No. The orange Airport Express serves Terminal 3 only. Terminal 1 is on the Magenta Line, at Terminal 1-IGI Airport station. Boarding the Airport Express for a T1 flight will leave you on the wrong side of the airfield, a 20-to-25-minute shuttle ride from your terminal.
What happens to my checked baggage if my connection changes terminals?
On a single connecting ticket with baggage through-checked, the airline handles the transfer. Air India, for instance, coordinates baggage movement between terminals for its through-checked domestic passengers. On two separate tickets, nothing is through-checked. You collect your bag at the first terminal, carry it to the second and check in again from scratch. Budget accordingly.
My airline is not in the terminal table. How do I find out?
If it is an international flight, the answer is Terminal 3 regardless of carrier. If it is a domestic flight on an airline without a published flight-number rule, the airline sets the terminal per flight. Your boarding pass at web check-in, roughly 48 hours before departure, is the only reliable source.
Is there anywhere to wait if I land in the middle of the night?
All three terminals have landside seating and 24-hour food outlets, but arrivals halls do not suit long waits and there is no free airside transit hotel for domestic passengers. If you land after midnight and your onward connection is hours away, Aerocity, one Airport Express stop from T3, is the practical answer, though the metro itself is not running at that hour.
The three things that matter
Confirm your terminal from your own booking. The flight-number rules in this article are accurate as of August 2026, but your boarding pass outranks them. Check it the night before.
Remember that T1 is a separate campus. Eight kilometres, its own metro line and no airside link to the other terminals. Almost every serious mistake at IGI comes from treating it as part of the same building.
If a terminal change is in your itinerary, buffer it properly. Every inter-terminal transfer at Delhi is landside, which means a second security queue on top of the travel time. Ninety minutes for a T1 transfer is not cautious. It is the minimum that reliably works.
If Delhi is where you are landing rather than passing through, current South Delhi rental listings are a reasonable next stop, after you have reached the right terminal.
Sources
This page draws its facts from the following, in order of authority for each claim:
- Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL): terminal specifications, inter-terminal shuttle operation, fares and pickup points, parking, DigiYatra availability
- Air India, Air India Express, IndiGo and SpiceJet: terminal allocation by flight number, check-in cut-offs, minimum connection times
- Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC): Airport Express and Magenta Line stations, fares and journey times
- Airport Economic Regulatory Authority of India (AERA): User Development Fee, fourth control period 2024-29
- Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA): CAR Section 3, Series M, Part I (2014) on passengers with reduced mobility
- Ministry of Home Affairs / Bureau of Immigration: Fast Track Immigration-Trusted Traveller Programme; e-arrival card
- Airports Council International: 2025 global passenger traffic ranking
- Skytrax: World Airport Awards 2026
Two of these sources currently disagree on Airport Express first and last train times, and on inter-terminal shuttle frequency. Where that happens, this page gives both figures and states the conflict rather than resolving it silently.