India's newest airport, Noida International Airport, began flight operations on Monday as low-cost carrier IndiGo became the first airline to land at the newly built facility located in Jewar, on the outskirts of New Delhi.

IndiGo flight 6E 2278 departed Lucknow — the capital of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh — at 7:12 a.m. and touched down at the new airport at 7:58 a.m., marking the operational debut of the long-awaited greenfield project.

In a symbolic first departure, the airport dispatched its inaugural outbound flight to Lucknow at around 8:19 a.m., carrying residents from the Jewar area whose farmland had been acquired by the state government to build the airport.

The new airport is designed to ease pressure on the heavily congested Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi while improving air access for the wider National Capital Region—a sprawling urban belt of more than 45 million people.

Authorities say the airport has been planned as a multimodal transport hub, integrating air, road, and other transport links to boost connectivity across western Uttar Pradesh and beyond.

Officials expect the new facility to benefit business travellers, students, and professionals by offering an additional gateway into one of Asia's fastest-growing aviation markets.

Source: The Economics Times