Air India Subsidiary Inks Pact To Build Country’s Largest Multi-modal Cargo Hub At Noida International Airport

Leading airport services company, Air India SATS will develop a multi-modal cargo hub (MMCH) at the upcoming Noida International Airport at Jewar In Uttar Pradesh.

The concession agreement to build a state-of-the-art multi-modal cargo hub was signed between Sanjay Gupta, Chief Executive Officer of AISATS, and Christoph Schnellmann, Chief executive Officer of Yamuna International Airport Private Ltd on 30 May.

As per the agreement, AISATS will design, build, finance and operate the integrated multi-modal cargo hub in 87 acres at the Jewar airport.

Air India SATS Airport Services Private Limited is a joint venture between Air India Limited and Singapore Airport Terminal Services. Today, AISATS is present at five airports in India and handles 1,30,000 flights annually both in cargo- and ground-handling.

MMCH

The MMCH will be a first of its kind in India, comprising Integrated Cargo Terminal (ICT) and Integrated Warehousing and Logistics Zone (IWLZ) and will be equipped with road-to-road, road-to-air, and air-to-road movements.

While the ICT will handle both domestic and international cargo with dedicated terminals; additionally, will be managing express courier shipments and a cool port facility for perishables, pharmaceuticals and other temperature-sensitive cargo.

The cargo hub at NIA, will cater to several upcoming industrial clusters in Delhi-NCR and Uttar Pradesh, creating a cargo gateway for Northern India. 

NIA To Be Ready By 2024

NIA is the upcoming greenfield airport at Jewar in Gautam Buddha Nagar district in Uttar Pradesh. It will enhance domestic as well as international connectivity to and from Delhi-NCR, Noida and Western Uttar Pradesh.

The airport, billed to be India's largest upon completion, will be developed in four phases, with two interconnected terminals and an annual passenger capacity of 70 million.

The first phase spread over 1,334 hectares will have one runway, cargo hub along with a terminal that will cater to domestic and international passengers. As per the concession agreement, the first phase for 12 million passengers per annum is to be completed and made operational by September 2024.

The Noida airport is being developed by Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (YIAPL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zurich Airport International AG, in partnership with the state government.

Zurich Airport International AG won the bid to develop Noida International Airport in 2019 and the concession period officially commenced from 01 October 2021. Following the ground-breaking ceremony by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2021, the first phase of the airport is on track to open in 2024.