Why travellers are still skipping India’s newest airport for old IGI

Noida International Airport (NIA) turned a month old this week, and the early data suggests many travellers in the Delhi-NCR region are still choosing the older, better-connected IGI Airport over the new facility at Jewar. NIA sits about 65 kilometres from Noida Sector 18 and is almost entirely dependent on cab travel, whereas IGI offers multi-modal transport options that make it far more convenient for residents of Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad alike.

The distance and affordability gap has translated into a gradual rather than explosive ramp-up. NIA opened with 86 flights serving 5 cities in its first week, growing to 224 flights across 15 cities by week four. Passenger numbers climbed from 1,427 on the opening day to 2,797 this past Monday, still short of the terminal’s current capacity, which is comparable to Terminal 2 at IGI. Of the airport’s three original launch carriers, Air India Express has already exited the route as parent Air India deals with mounting losses.

Not every airline is pulling back, however. IndiGo has expanded aggressively at NIA, running 105 weekly flights to 15 cities including twice-daily services to Lucknow and Jaipur, and has only dropped its Noida-Chandigarh route so far due to weak footfall. Akasa Air, meanwhile, has paused the Bengaluru and Navi Mumbai flights it launched on June 16 and is instead trying a twice-daily NIA-Mumbai CSMIA service.

Between June 15 and July 13, the airport logged 18,424 departures and 18,089 arrivals, plus 11,732 transfer passengers and 13,042 in-transit passengers, meaning nearly 40% of total traffic has come from passengers simply connecting through NIA rather than travelling to or from the region. Authorities remain optimistic about the trajectory. Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) CEO R K Singh said the airport currently averages 13 to 14 daily outbound and inbound flights and roughly 2,500 to 2,600 passengers a day, with numbers expected to grow as a new NHAI interchange linking the Eastern Peripheral Expressway to the Yamuna Expressway opens near Dankaur on August 15.

The slow build also reflects wider pressure on Indian aviation. Airlines have been cutting international capacity because of the closure of Pakistani airspace since last April, higher oil prices linked to the US-Iran war, and a weaker rupee. ‘Noida Airport has set sail amid the perfect storm. The first few years are going to be tough, but the long-term prospects are sound,’ a senior airline official said, describing the conditions NIA has launched into.

[Source: Wikimedia Commons/Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India]