Noida: Ticket sales opened for Noida International Airport (IATA code DXN) on Thursday, with IndiGo the first carrier to start bookings. IndiGo will operate 16 routes from the airport, five of which will begin in June and the rest in July.On June 15, when NIA starts commercial operations, the first touchdown will be at 8.05 am of an IndiGo flight (6E 2278), which will take off from Lucknow’s Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport Terminal 3 at 7.05 am. A ticket for the Lucknow-Noida flight was priced at Rs 5,072 on Thursday.A Bengaluru-bound flight (6E 2278) will be the first to take off from the airport at 8.35 am. It will touch down at Kempegowda International Airport at 11.05 am. The flight will return to Noida at 6.20 pm the same day. The flight returning to Lucknow will take off from Noida airport at 6.55 pm. The opening day will see flights to and from two more cities — Hyderabad and Amritsar. From June 16, along with these daily flights, IndiGo will begin a daily service to and from Jammu.From July 1 onwards, it will add daily flights to Navi Mumbai, Srinagar, Jodhpur, Dharamsala, Bhopal, Dehradun, Bareilly, Kishangarh, Jaipur, Pantnagar and Chandigarh. While it will operate daily on most routes, only flights to Bareilly (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday) and Kishangarh (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) will run on alternate days. No connections have been announced by the airline yet for major cities like Kolkata and Chennai.“NIA will be the new gateway for western Uttar Pradesh, alongside the NCR. Large metropolitan regions of India are maturing to support multiple airports, and IndiGo is proud to contribute to this evolution by serving all three in the NCR — IGI Airport, Hindon and now NIA,” IndiGo’s chief strategy officer Aloke Singh said.Shailendra Bhatia, nodal officer for NIAL, UP govt’s special purpose vehicle for the airport, said Akasa Air and Air India Express would also open bookings within days and begin operations from June 16 or 17. International flights from Noida are expected only from Sept. Cargo services are also scheduled to commence from June 15.The airport has cleared a series of regulatory hurdles ahead of the launch. Last month, expat CEO Christoph Schnellmann was replaced after govt denied him security clearance — rules require an Indian national to head greenfield airports. Schnellmann moved to the board as executive vice-chairman, and CFO Nitu Samra was appointed interim CEO. The airport subsequently received approval for its Aerodrome Security Programme from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, confirming that its security framework, systems and operating procedures meet regulatory requirements.NIAL also held a meeting on Thursday to expedite remaining work, including landscaping across the airport campus with plants, grass, lighting and decorative elements.
