Noida International Airport gets BCAS security clearance, flights expected from June 2026

Noida International Airport (IATA: DXN), located at Jewar in Gautam Buddha Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, received its final security clearance from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) on April 28, 2026. The BCAS is the last mandatory regulatory gate before commercial flights can begin.

Operations to Begin From June 2026

As per the reports of The Times of India and News24, the BCAS ratified the Aerodrome Security Programme (ASP) of the airport and paved the way to start domestic operations in the first week of June 2026.

The clearance came after a crucial leadership shift. Indian aviation rules require an airport CEO to be an Indian national. Airport operator Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (YIAPL), therefore, replaced the foreign CEO, Christoph Schnellmann, with an Indian executive to satisfy the requirement. The Ministry of Home Affairs later approved.

What Is Ready and Who Will Fly

Phase 1 of the airport features one runway and one terminal with a capacity of 12 million passengers annually. It was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 28, 2026, after the DGCA issued the aerodrome licence on March 6, 2026.

IndiGo, Akasa Air, and Air India Express have already indicated that they will be operating out of the airport. The first services will be directed at domestic passenger and cargo services. As per the reports of The Times of India, the launch phase will have 13 cities, such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Goa, Varanasi, Bhopal, and Jammu, connected.

Approximately 60–70 daily flights are planned at the start, per News24. International flights are expected later in 2026.

Industry Specialist Perspective

Christoph Schnellmann, outgoing CEO of YIAPL, had previously pegged the airport's long-term ambition clearly in multiple pre-inauguration statements:

His replacement by an Indian CEO named Nitu Samra, to clear the MHA requirement was a procedural move, not a strategic one. The YIAPL has confirmed continuity in the airport's commercial direction.

What Comes Next: NCR's Dual-Airport Future

Noida International Airport is designed to complement IGI Airport as part of a Delhi-NCR dual-airport system. IGI currently serves more than 70 million passengers every year. Phase 1 of Noida airport will scale to 70 million passengers per year at full build-out across all four phases, making it, at completion, comparable in size to IGI today.

Another aspect of Akasa Air's value made at the airport, in its very opening, is the announcement of the first MRO in the airport, which adds the dimension of maintenance to the entire operation.

As airlines are prepared, schedules are about to begin, and road access to Jewar via the Yamuna Expressway is in place, the first week of June is the most plausible commercial launch window that Jewar has had since its initial 2022 target date.