Delhi Airport has finally got its much awaited third runway which is expected to cut hovering time over Delhi to almost zero but passengers may be forced to continue paying congestion surcharge on their air tickets.

The 4430 metre runway is India's longest and can handle Airbus's A-380. The runway will also almost double the number of flights 35 to 60 per hour.

This simply means that passengers can now actually land at Delhi without hovering endlessly but the flip side is that passengers flying out of delhi may have to pay a development charge.

'We have to ensure that the airports recover their costs so the ministry will take a broader view on this,” said Praful Patel, Civil Aviation Minister.

The new terminal to be built at a cost of over Rs 9000 crore is still 2 years in the future so for the time being passengers will land on this new runway before walking into the overcrowded arrival terminals.

The operationalisation of the third runway is a big milestone for GMR and a major relief for air passengers who have to hover over airports for hours because of congestion.

Even as the government and the airport operators are confident that this runway will end the congestion problem, nobody is sure that if airlines will also oblige by doing away with congestion surcharge which passengers have to pay.