India is in the midst of an aviation-driven infrastructure boom, with 43 new airports to be added by 2025 and 200 more planned over the next 20 years. Signifying the government’s focus on air transport to cities, towns, regional and remote locations across India, Prime Minister Narender Modi inaugurated ten smaller airports and new terminals valued at over $742 million at the end of October
Global construction investment is getting a boost in the area around Delhi’s second international airport. The Noida International Airport (NIAL) will start operating its first phase in April 2025. Swiss airport operator Flughafen Zurich signed a concession agreement with the Uttar Pradesh state government to to build and manage NIAL in 2020, beating competitors Adani Enterprises, DIAL and Anchorage. Infra (Fairfax). The owner NIAL is a 100% subsidiary of Zürich Airport Ltd. Land acquisition for the airport has been funded by the state government and the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA).
NIAL is 74 km from the current Delhi International Airport.
“The timing is right to support higher debt,” an S&P Global Ratings analyst said in a webinar in May. “Increased passenger air traffic, relatively cheaper domestic financing rates and favorable government policies on foreign ownership should boost the sector’s financing prospects.” S&P expects $24 billion will be needed to build new airports and expand existing ones.
The state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) owns the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YIEDA), which is developing an area of 25,000 hectares along the 165-km, six-lane Yamuna Expressway from from Delhi to Agra. YIEDA has a major stake in NIAL as it will be the load center to cater to industrial demand and visitors from the state. YEIDA will develop 2,689 sq km in two phases near NIAL, including a greenfield city.
YIEDA has approved “in principle” US consultancy Blue Sky Vantage to develop a $4 billion “American City” on 1,200 acres over the next six years. Among the investors are the best American universities and politicians.
YEIDA is also planning a “Korean City” on 365 hectares and a “Japanese City” on 395 hectares, both located 10 km from NIAL. Last year, Japanese companies expressed interest in investing after evaluating the location and conducting soil tests. The planned e-hubs will include companies making chips, semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI) equipment and cameras.
APCO Infratech is currently constructing a 30 km link to connect NIAL with the 1,350 km six-lane Delhi Mumbai Expressway, divided into four sections with a total of 52 packages. The airport will also be connected with a new metro line as part of the 886 km Delhi-Varanasi bullet train project.
In January, a consortium led by Bayview Projects and Bhutani Infra was awarded a contract and 1,000 acres of land by YIEDA to develop the Noida International Film City. The first phase of the project will be built on 230 hectares. The company will develop the film city in a design, build, finance, operate and transfer contract.
YEIDA and NIAL CEO Arun Vir Singh said in a statement that construction of the film city is expected to begin in the next four to six months, and film-related activities are expected to begin in three years Ashish Bhutani, managing director of Bhutani Infrastructure, told news agency PTI that the first phase of 230 acres would need a minimum investment of $180 million.
YEIDA also announced plans to develop another new town near NIAL. The ambitious project will involve the acquisition of more than 6,000 hectares for residential, commercial and industrial development.
“Our location is golden, in the heart of the industrial heartland of the region,” says NIAL head Kiran Jain. “We have built into our design decongestion of the entry and exit points of the cargo terminal to start handling 100,000 tons of cargo soon.”
The public-private partnership project is expected to create capacity for 12 million passengers with a 90,000-square-meter terminal, a 4,150-meter runway, a parallel taxiway, a loading facility and stations subway and high-speed rail. The track is complete.
Phase 2, a mirror development of Phase 1, will include another terminal, a runway and a parallel taxiway. Phase 4, which will cover 4,752 hectares, will expand passenger capacity to 70 million.
After a seven-month delay, construction is at an advanced stage and the airport plans to start commercial flights in April 2025, says Christoph Schnellmann, CEO of NIAL. “We won the bid before the pandemic in 2020, facing many challenges during that time, including high fuel and raw material prices.”
Schnellmann adds that a major challenge has been obtaining the structural steel that will support the roof. In January, crews placed 1,800 m3 of concrete over 350 tons of steel in 20 hours.
Terminals are being built in a modular fashion. As prefabricated structures are scarce, workers are building structures on site. Although NIAL has 10,000 people working at the site, officials say skilled human resources, along with flood management, remain a challenge.
However, an air traffic control tower is now being tested, with arrival and departure validation flights due to be completed in December. “It’s the most important part of our evolutionary journey,” says Schnellmann.
