India’s smaller towns to get a big lift: 29 new airports

India is advancing its efforts to transform smaller towns into aviation hubs, with plans to establish 29 greenfield airports across underserved regions over the next two decades—a first of its kind on this scale.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has completed feasibility studies for 10 such airports, aiming to link smaller towns with global air routes, two officials aware of the development told Mint.

Gujarat leads the list with nine airports, followed by Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand. Thirteen other states are each slated to receive one airport under the plan.

The plan accounts for long-term passenger growth, aiming to have infrastructure in place over the next 20 years to meet future demand.

In parallel, the government is working on a five-year plan to upgrade or establish new airports in small cities, while also planning second or third airports in metros where current infrastructure is nearing capacity.

Read this | Centre prepares 5-year plan for 50+ new airports in smaller cities

“Most of these (the 29 proposed) airports have been found to be feasible…The pre-feasibility is being conducted for some of them. The idea is to make these airports capable of handling at least single aisle planes like Airbus 320 and Boeing 737s," said one of officials cited above. “Most of these airports will be made to handle bigger dual aisle planes to ensure that they are able to connect to international destinations directly.”

The second official emphasized that larger airports in smaller cities are crucial to building sufficient infrastructure for long-term growth.

“The idea is to build infrastructure for the long-term, as upgrading airports in smaller cities have been found to be inadequate with traffic growing beyond expectations in the short term. So, the plan is to build greenfield airports in these smaller cities to ensure that they can support growth for a long term,” the official added.

The officials, however, did not provide any estimate on the cost of building these airports, or a timeline, since they are still in early stages of planning.

Emails sent to AAI and the aviation ministry on Monday remained unanswered at the time of publishing.

Demand-driven planning: A key factor

Analysts welcome the move but stress that airport planning should be driven primarily by passenger growth forecasts, ensuring that infrastructure matches demand rather than political motivations.

“Superb thinking by the government for planning ahead for airports in underserved regions, kudos to the government. A word of caution, we have seen in the past that these airport planning has been influenced by politics, elections more than the passenger growth projections. We must understand air transport is based on demand and those can't be gimmicky or manifesto based," said Mark Martin, founder and CEO at Martin Consulting, an aviation consultancy firm. 

Martin also stressed that regions like Manipal, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, and Bihar should be prioritized for better connectivity, to address growing demand.

More here | India has big-city ambitions for its small airports.

“Airport planning in the past have been based more on politics that has led to airports with no passengers and city like Patna still struggling with an unsafe airport…It is good that a greenfield airport is planned for Patna but some airports in the list still seems unnecessary,” he added.

Regional air travel takes off

Post-pandemic, small towns in India have experienced a surge in passenger traffic, driven by the government’s UDAN scheme, which subsidizes flights to underserved destinations. Some airports have seen a six-fold increase in passengers this fiscal year, albeit from a low base.

Launched in 2017, the UDAN scheme has significantly boosted air travel demand in smaller towns. Domestic routes have risen from 215 in 2014 to 540 by April 2024, with a target of 1,000 operational UDAN routes.

The planned greenfield airports, in addition to new metro airports like Jewar and Navi Mumbai, aim to meet rising demand. 

Indian carriers ferried 8 million passengers during the quarter ended June, marking a 17.6% growth year- on-year, while international passenger traffic grew 10% to 9.6 million.

Estimates, based on passenger growth, suggest that 14 cities may soon need second or third airports to keep up with rising demand. Chennai and Pune are already in advanced stages of planning second airports, while Mumbai and Bengaluru could require third airports by 2047.

Also read | Mint Explainer: What does it take to build an aviation hub?

Tier-2 cities such as Srinagar, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Gorakhpur, and Leh will also likely need new airports over the next 10 to 20 years to accommodate future growth.