Airports Authority of India would like to put on record the factual status regarding the growing congestion and our future plans to meet increasing passenger traffic at Jai Prakash Narayan International Airport, Patna.
Patna Airport was originally designed for handling 0.7 million passengers. With the tremendous growth in aviation in past few years, the airport has handled 2.11 million passengers in the year 2016-17
In order to meet the ever increasing passenger traffic, AAI is now constructing a new state -of -the -art terminal building with passenger handling capacity of 4.5 million at the cost of Rs. 800 crores. The construction work for the new terminal building will start from April, 2018. This new terminal building at Patna Airport will take care of 2250 passengers during peak hour
In addition to this, a new terminal building at Bihita with a passenger handling capacity of 5 million is also planned at the total cost of Rs. 800 Crores. The work for construction will commence from September, 2018 subject to handing over of land by December, 2017. AAI has also decided to start 24 -hour operations at Patna Airport in coming summer schedule. This will allow night operations i.e. from 10 pm to 6am, thereby reducing the day time air traffic
Meanwhile, Airport Director, Patna Airport has taken various steps to ease the congestion in terminal building and Security Hold Area. A temporary structure with seating capacity of 300 passengers has been erected outside the terminal building. Passengers are allowed to enter terminal building only before 2 hours from the scheduled departure and one-hour prior in Security Hold Area. Additional frisking booth has been added in security check which is operational during peak hours. Work has been awarded for the expansion of Security Hold Area (SHA) on the first floor which will be completed by March 2018. An additional boarding gate will also be operational from February, 2018.