Delhi High Court issues notice on plea to reduce bird strike with aircraft at IGI airport

Delhi High Court issues notice on petition raising concerns over bird strikes at Indira Gandhi International Airport.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday (March 19, 2025) issued notice to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the Airports Authority of India, amongst others, on a petition raising concerns over high number of bird strikes with aircrafts at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi.

The petition filed by social activist Gauri Maulekhi pointed out that during the period of 2018-2023, the total number of bird strikes at the IGI Airport stood at 705 incidents. The plea said, outnumbered combined bird strike incidents reported across 29 airports in six other States — Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand — stood at 654 incidents.

The plea said, in contrast to the previous years, 2022 onwards the number of bird strikes have skyrocketed in Delhi with 183 bird strikes recorded in 2022. In 2021, IGI reported 94 bird strikes and 62 in 2020.

“Delhi’s figures from 2018-Oct 2023 are exceptionally troubling: its wildlife strike incidents [including birds strike incidents] outnumber the combined total reported at Mumbai and 1,414 Bengaluru airports together during the same period which stood at 623,” the plea said.

Her petition claimed that the “primary reason” for occurrence of such incidents is on account of presence of slaughter houses, meat shops, dairy farms and environmental pollution around the IGI Airport.

She said such operation of slaughter houses, meat shops, dairy farms and disposal of the remnants around the IGI Airport is contrary to various statutes.

“The Aircraft Rules, 1937, and the Bharatiya Vayuyan Vidheyak, 2024 prohibit slaughter or flay of animal or disposal of any garbage related thereto, which is likely to attract birds/animals, within a radius of 10 kms from the aerodrome reference point,” she said, adding, contravention of the said Rule constitutes a cognizable penal offence.