Considerable interest from airlines for international operations from Noida International Airport: CEO Schnellmann | Business News

Schnellmann said that NIA is in talks with Air India and other domestic and international carriers for flight operations from the airport, which will be the second major airport in the National Capital Region after Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA). The airport’s terminal is being designed as an integrated one for both domestic and international operations.

The airport is expected to start commercial operations from April 2025. The airport was earlier scheduled to start operations by the end of this year, but the timeline was extended due to delays in delivery of certain construction materials and equipment due to global supply chain constraints. According to Schnellmann, all stakeholders are working together to ensure that the new timeline is met.

Most of the runway work at the airport is complete and calibration flights by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) are scheduled for September-October. Validation flights for airport approach and departure procedures are scheduled for December. The airport operator plans to apply for the aerodrome license — the approval from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to operate as an airport — also in December.

The first phase of airport, with one runway and one terminal, will have the capacity to handle traffic of 1.2 crore passengers annually. Eventually, after the completion of the fourth phase, the airport will have the capacity to manage 70 million passengers per year.

The airport, a marquee project for the Uttar Pradesh government, is being developed by Yamuna International Airport Pvt Ltd (YIAPL), a fully-owned subsidiary of Zurich Airport International AG. YIAPL is also the operator of the airport over a 40-year concession period that started on October 1, 2021.

The NIA will connect the greater Delhi area and Western Uttar Pradesh with flights and will serve as the second airport in the NCR besides Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), which is India’s largest airport. Given India’s rapidly rising air traffic, the IGIA is likely to be saturated in a few years. The NIA is expected to complement the IGIA in servicing demand from the region.

The airport is one of the two under-construction greenfield airports — the other being the Navi Mumbai airport — that will serve as second airports for major metropolitan cities and their adjoining areas. The Navi Mumbai airport is expected to commence operations by March-end next year.