India Has 165 Operational Airports Against 74 in 2014, and Navi Mumbai and Noida Opened Within Six Months of Each Other

On 15 July 2026, India had 165 operational airports, according to a backgrounder that the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the government’s information agency, published on 17 July. In 2014 the civil aviation ministry’s count was 74. Two of the newest, Navi Mumbai International Airport and Noida International Airport at Jewar, took their first scheduled passengers on 25 December 2025 and 15 June 2026.

The 165 is a ministry figure, and the ministry’s counting has not always been limited to passenger terminals. Its June 2023 release described the growth since 2014 as airports, heliports and water aerodromes taken together. The July 2026 backgrounder does not say how its 165 is made up.

Navi Mumbai: inaugurated 8 October 2025, flying since 25 December

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Phase 1 of Navi Mumbai International Airport on 8 October 2025, the date on the PIB release and on the public broadcaster’s report. The ministry’s own year-end review, published in January 2026, gives 6 October.

PIB describes it as India’s largest greenfield airport project, meaning one built on fresh land rather than an old site, with a cost of around Rs 19,650 crore under a public-private partnership. The airport company is 74 percent held by Mumbai International Airport Ltd and 26 percent by CIDCO, the Maharashtra government’s city development agency, and Adani Airport Holdings builds and operates it, according to the operator.

Scheduled flying started on 25 December 2025. IndiGo flight 6E460 from Bengaluru landed at 8 am and got a water cannon salute, All India Radio reported, quoting the operator. By 12 January 2026 the airport had handled 1,09,917 passengers, 55,934 arriving and 53,983 departing, so it crossed one lakh in 19 days. Its busiest day to then was 10 January, with 7,345 passengers. Delhi, Goa and Bengaluru were the top routes.

International flying began on 15 July 2026, when Air India Express started services to Abu Dhabi. The Tribune reported that it was the airport’s first scheduled international route.

The airport’s operator says the launch phase aims to serve 20 million passengers a year. PIB gives the full design as 90 million passengers and 3.25 million tonnes of cargo a year, on 1,160 hectares. Its release lists planned features that include a people mover between the four terminals, about 47 MW of solar power, storage for sustainable aviation fuel and what it says will be the country’s first airport connected by water taxi.

Noida International Airport: inaugurated 28 March 2026, flying since 15 June

Noida International Airport, at Jewar in Uttar Pradesh, was inaugurated by the Prime Minister on 28 March 2026. PIB calls it the second international airport for Delhi NCR, working alongside Indira Gandhi International Airport. Phase I cost around Rs 11,200 crore under a public-private partnership. It starts at 12 million passengers a year, with room to grow to 70 million, and has a 3,900 metre runway that can take wide-body jets. The cargo terminal is designed for more than 2.5 lakh tonnes a year, expandable to about 18 lakh tonnes.

At the inauguration the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of a 40-acre maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) centre for aircraft. He said 85 percent of Indian aircraft still go abroad for that work.

Scheduled flights began eleven weeks later, on 15 June 2026. The airport had announced the date on 1 May, after the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security approved its Aerodrome Security Programme. IndiGo ran the first service, and All India Radio reported that 170 farmers who gave land for the airport were on the first commercial flight. Civil Aviation Minister K. Rammohan Naidu said the first phase can handle 1.2 crore (12 million) passengers a year, rising beyond 7 crore after completion.

In the same address, the Prime Minister noted that nearly all of India’s broad gauge rail network is now electrified. Our piece on railway electrification sets that at 99.6 percent as of March 2026. He also said the foundation stone of a semiconductor factory in Noida was laid in recent weeks, and our semiconductor tracker lists what is in production and under construction.

How the airport count grew

The ministry has given a count at several dates, and each is a statement by the ministry or its minister.

Naidu said at the 15 June launch that more than Rs 1.4 lakh crore had been invested in airport infrastructure over the past decade. Traffic has moved with the airports. On 23 November 2025 airlines carried 5,38,429 domestic passengers in a single day on 3,356 flights, the highest single-day figure on record according to the ministry’s January 2026 year-end review. PIB’s July 2026 backgrounder calls India the third-largest domestic aviation market in the world.

UDAN: where the small-town flights come from

UDAN, short for Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (let the common citizen fly), is the regional connectivity scheme launched in October 2016. Under it the government pays airlines a subsidy called viability gap funding, so that a route with few passengers can still be flown while demand builds.

As of 15 July 2026, PIB reports 679 UDAN routes connecting 95 airports, heliports and water aerodromes. More than 3.58 lakh flights have carried over 1.68 crore (16.8 million) passengers. PIB names Tezpur, Passighat, Diu, Pithoragarh and Rourkela among the places it has reached. One passenger, Nagendra Bharti, told PIB that Vijayawada to Kadapa used to take 8 to 10 hours by road and now takes about an hour by air.

At the scheme’s ninth anniversary on 21 October 2025, the ministry said it had paid out more than Rs 4,465 crore as viability gap funding and invested Rs 4,639 crore in airports under the scheme.

Modified UDAN and the next 100 airports

The Cabinet approved Modified UDAN on 25 March 2026, with an outlay of Rs 28,840 crore from FY 2026-27 to FY 2035-36. It has five parts:

• 100 airports developed from existing unserved airstrips, Rs 12,159 crore over eight years.
• 200 modern helipads at Rs 15 crore each, Rs 3,661 crore over eight years, for hilly, remote, island and aspirational districts.
• Viability gap funding for airlines, Rs 10,043 crore over ten years.
• Operations and maintenance support for about 441 aerodromes, Rs 2,577 crore.
• Two HAL Dhruv helicopters for Pawan Hans and two HAL Dornier aircraft for Alliance Air.

The Prime Minister launched the scheme on 4 July 2026 at Jodhpur, where he also opened a new Rs 480 crore terminal. It is designed for 20 lakh passengers a year, against about 4 lakh for the old building, which PIB says had reached saturation.

What comes next

A June 2023 ministry release said the government aimed for 220 airports in all, without giving a date. Modified UDAN funds 100 more over eight years, built from airstrips that already exist. Navi Mumbai’s full design of 90 million passengers a year and Noida’s of 70 million belong to later phases of each airport. The launch phases are built for 20 million and 12 million a year.