The emergency landing was made at around 10.13 am almost two hours after the flight took off from the Delhi airport, the airline said
This is the second such incident in the span of a week on-board IndiGo flights after a Kolkata-Delhi IndiGo aircraft suffered a tail strike on its arrival at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport on June 11.
The facility, owned by Adani Group, currently has the terminal capacity of 8-million passengers annually, while it is expected to handle 20-million passengers per annum by 2025-26 thereby necessitating the expansion work, which include a new integrated terminal building and refurbishment of existing terminals, it said.
Pilots question the period of closure of the airport pointing out that Ahmedabad is an alternate airport for flights coming to Delhi, Jaipur, and Amritsar airports; say maintenance should ideally be done at the night.
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said the ministry was considering privatisation of four airports in the country -- Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Jaipur.
The 16 developers include, GVK, GMR, Tatas, Reliance Infra, Essel Infra and Fraport which had developed the Delhi Airport along with GMR. Sources say even Larsen & Toubro has shown interest for development of other airports.