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The New Delhi Terminal 3The new Delhi Terminal 3 building is an engineering and political feat marking India's entry as a modern super power with a modern economy. 
There was once a time when arriving to New Delhi Airport was one of the most terrifying things that one could do in their lives, especially for the India first timer. I remember when I was first there and being met with leaky roofs, swarms of mosquitoes, beggars, aggressive touts and unimaginable heat. The story now however is slightly different with what is being hailed as one of the greatest airports ever built. The New Delhi terminal 3 building covers over 500,000 square feet and is set over 9 floors making it the one of largest terminals in the world just behind Hong Kong and the 1500,000 square foot complex in Dubai. The DesignThe new airport in Delhi is specifically designed to be money and energy efficient with extra emphasis on as much natural light as possible coming in all the way down through the nine floors while at the same time the clever design means that as most of the heat is kept out. The TechnologyThe state of the art Delhi Terminal 3 building is at the cutting edge of design and technology with a host of security measures and mod cons. The New terminal, known known as T3, has 97 automated walk ways, 78 gates about 100 immigration counters, 15 X-ray screening areas and over 200,000 square feet of retail outlets themed around an authentic Indian Market. There is also enough parking for 4300 cars.
Transportation to and from the terminalThe new terminal in New Delhi will be connected to the city by an 8 line super highway and a varied mass transit system including low floor buses, prepaid taxis and the New Delhi Airport Metro express line. Delhi Terminal 3 traffic statisticsThe previous two terminals in Delhi collectively had an annual passenger capacity of around 12.5 million for both national and international flights. However what with a huge surge in aviation traffic in India and a new breed of low cost carriers, the airports were simply to small and it is estimated that over 17 millions passengers passed through annually. Delhi Terminal 3 has been built to carry around 34 million passengers a year and will take on all of the international flights along with a small proportion of domestic flights.
The cost of T3The cost of the new airport in Delhi is roughly $2.7 million or 10,000 Crore. It was completed in an almost record breaking time of 37 months well ahead of Chinas Beijing airport which took over 45 months to complete. The future of New Delhi AirportTwo new terminals (3 and 4) will be built triggered by traffic figures taking the annual capacity of all the terminals to over 100 million a year. These two new terminal will take all of the international flight with terminal 3 taking on all of the domestic flights. Predictions for the future suggest a huge surge in domestic traffic and figures of over 180 million domestic travellers are being thrown around with international traffic reaching rates of around 50 million.
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