Lucknow: The Noida International Airport in Uttar Pradesh’s Jewar, near Noida, will be renamed Narendra Modi International Airport.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced on Friday that his Cabinet has approved the proposal.
“The Council of Ministers of Uttar Pradesh expresses its gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for gifting the state the Noida International Airport at Jewar. The Cabinet has approved a proposal to name it Narendra Modi International Airport, Noida-Jewar,” Yogi informed.
The new airport was set to emerge as Uttar Pradesh’s largest airport and a major aviation hub in the country, Yogi added.
The airport, inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi on March 28, received its first flight with an IndiGo plane arriving from Lucknow on June 15.
The airport, built at a cost of Rs 11,282 crore, was developed by the Yamuna International Airport Private Limited, a subsidiary of Swiss firm Zurich Airport International AG, in association with the Noida International Airport Limited, which is the implementing agency on behalf of the UP government.
The first Noida airport has an initial annual capacity of 1.2 crore passengers. Within a few years, it can be scaled up to 7 crore passengers in a year. The airport has a 3,900-metre runway capable of handling wide-body aircraft, as well as modern navigation systems.
Equipped with world-class facilities, the airport has been constructed and designed as a high-tech fortress to ensure safety of passengers and infrastructure on a global scale.
Modi is the fourth Indian Prime Minister to have an airport named after him. He is the first among those five PMs to be bestowed the honour during his lifetime.
AIRPORTS IN INDIA NAMED AFTER PRIME MINISTERS
* Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi (renamed in 1986, previous name Palam Airport)
* Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad (new airport opened in 2008, previous one Begumpet Airport)
* Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport, Varanasi (renamed in 2005, previous name Varanasi Airport)
* Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport, Lucknow (renamed in 2008, previous name Amausi Airport)
* Narendra Modi International Airport, Jewar-Noida (renamed in Oct 2026, previous name Noida International Airport).
Note: Bhubaneswar Airport was renamed Biju Patnaik International Airport, after Odisha’s former Chief Minister, in 1998.