After a 25-year wait, NCR gets a new airport as Noida International Airport launches

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated Noida International Airport, fulfilling the National Capital Region's wait for a second airport nearly 25 years after it was initially proposed.

The new airport at Jewar in Noida will start with an initial capacity of 12 million passengers a year. When the four phases are completed, it would handle 70 million flyers annually with six runways.

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Initially slated to open in September 2024, the airport missed multiple deadlines as the pandemic earlier this decade hit supply of construction materials and regulatory approvals took longer than usual.

Commencement of flights will take around one more month as the airport is still awaiting some regulatory approvals including clearance of security programme.

The airport will initially start with around 10 daily departures and arrivals each and will gradually expand capacity.

Zurich Airport International AG, which won the bid to build and operate the airport for 40 years in 2019, has invested around ₹7,200 crore in the first phase.

While billed as a second airport to Delhi's Indira Gandhi international Airport, it is around 75 km away from the capital and is more likely to get flyers from the western region of Uttar Pradesh in the first few years.

"The airport will benefit a vast region encompassing Agra, Mathura, Aligarh, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Etawah, Bulandshahr and Faridabad and will bring numerous new opportunities for the farmers, small and medium enterprises and the youth of western Uttar Pradesh," Modi said while inaugurating the airport.

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As of now, the airport lacks any fast mode of transport connecting Delhi, but the Uttar Pradesh government has approved a ₹16,000 crore rapid rail corridor that will connect the two airports along with other parts of Delhi.

It will also allow airlines to start more flights from the NCR. Akasa Air, which has struggled to get slots at Delhi Airport, will be one of the first airlines to start flights from Noida along with market leader IndiGo.

"Two of the most critical markets have been slot-constrained for quite some time now. So, considering that there are new spaces opening up at Delhi and Mumbai, we will see much more increase in growth," an airline official said. The Navi Mumbai airport started operations last December.

Modi said the area is becoming the hub of two major freight corridors, special railway tracks laid for goods trains, which have enhanced North India's connectivity with the seaports of Bengal and Gujarat. "This kind of multi-modal connectivity is making UP a major attraction for investors worldwide," he said.