NCR’s second airport seeks point of call status, revision of bilateral rights
The government has previously dismissed demands from Amritsar, Chandigarh and Kannur for point of call status
Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Durga Shankar Mishra inspects the site of Noida International Airport in Noida.
| Photo Credit: ANI
Noida International Airport (NIA), which is expected to start flight operations in April 2025 and will serve as the second airport for the national capital region, has urged for a revision in the government’s policy on bilateral rights and a separate “point of call” status to enable international airlines to provide connectivity to it.
“Why will an international airline remove their existing capacity from Delhi airport and deploy it for Noida International Airport unless the seat capacity is raised,” said an industry source privy to the discussions between the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the airport. The airport was earlier set to start flight operations in December 2024, which has now been pushed to April 2025.
The government has requests from Dubai, Qatar, UAE, Turkey, Singapore, and Malaysia, among others, for an increase in seats their airlines can mount on flights to India. However, the Indian government maintains that airlines that route passengers through their country’s transit hubs such as Dubai and Doha to fill up their planes on European and U.S. routes, result in a loss of passenger traffic for Indian carriers such as Air India offering long-haul international connectivity. There have been revisions for the U.K. and Thailand though, with the government allowing an additional 14 flights per week from London Heathrow to Delhi and Mumbai airports and 7,000 extra seats for Thailand.
The airport has also written to the government for a separate point of call status but officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation maintain that a point of call designation is given to a city and not an airport and Delhi as a point of call will cover not just the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport but also the new airport in the national capital region. Officials cite the example of Goa as a point of call, which they say covers GMR’s Mopa airport launched in 2023 as well as the old Airports Authority of India airport at Dabolim, both of which are served by international carriers.
However, industry sources say that the government needs to in the least sign a Memorandum of Understanding with various jurisdictions, which will clarify Noida International Airport’s status and ensure a “level playing field” and “equal access”.
There have been demands for a point of call status for cities such as Amritsar, Chandigarh, Kannur, and Vijayawada, which have been rejected by the government. In the recently concluded Monsoon Session of Parliament, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol said in response to these demands, “The Government of India promotes more international operations by Indian carriers from non-metro points either directly or through their own domestic operations. Accordingly, non-metro airports are not granted as new points of call in the Air Services Agreements to any foreign carrier.”
The Minister added that the decision to grant access to new points of call to foreign carriers depends on various benefits to the Indian aviation sector such as the presence of Indian diaspora in that country, future plans of Indian carriers, elements of reciprocity, among others.
However, industry experts say that while withholding the point of call status for tier-2 and tier-3 cities is in the interest of Indian airlines as well as the government’s ambition to develop its own airports as transit hubs, the case of Noida International Airport was a separate one as the airport was conceived as a second airport for the national capital region.
When the then Civil Aviation Minister Gajapathi Raju announced to the press the government’s in-principle approval for an airport at Jewar in Greater Noida, he said that the decision was taken because the IGI airport will reach its structural capacity of 109 million passengers per annum by 2024 when Delhi will require a second airport.
Though IGI’s expansion was delayed by COVID-19 pandemic, its current capacity stands at 100 million to 105 million.
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