The Indian government has announced that the long-awaited expansion of Patna Airport (PAT), in the northeast of India near both the Nepal and Bangladesh borders, may well be ready by summer 2024.

The gateway, whose full name is Jayprakash Narayan International Airport, is in the state of Bihar and its development has been on the cards since at least 2018. However, the project was put on ice mainly due to the pandemic. According to Airports Authority of India (AAI) data, the airport was the 15^th busiest in the country in the financial year 2022/23, serving 3.75 million passengers, up by 26.3% from 2.97 million the year before.

The main element of the expansion at the primarily domestic gateway is the construction of a new integrated terminal building and the reconstruction of the old terminal as well as the provision of high-mast floodlighting for the aprons at the one-runway airport.

Indian media have reported that the more than 65,000 square meter terminal (see video below) will be able to handle 3,000 passengers per hour during its peak periods and eight million annually. This gives PAT the headroom it needs to cater to passenger growth in the coming decade and more.

In April, The Times of India quoted KS Vijayan, AAI’s General Manager for Engineering Projects at Patna as saying: “The civil work on the basement and arrival area of the terminal building has been done while slab construction work has started on the departure level. The two-level building will have arrivals on the ground floor and departures on the first floor.”

The planned upgrade will transform the airport experience and give Bihar state the air gateway it has been seeking for many years. Read on to discover all the changes that are planned and why they are needed.

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