The late morning sun bounces off a line of fluorescent orange vests and yellow helmets shuffling towards a makeshift table. There, each of the men in the queue presents his Aadhaar card for verification. A nod later, the workers trudge towards an area filled with the grinding of machines and the striking of hammers.Nearly 85 km from the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, the primary aviation hub for New Delhi and its adjoining region, this is the airside area of the upcoming Noida International Airport in Jewar, in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddha Nagar district. Since June 2022, these workers have been giving shape to an expanse of glass, concrete and metal spread across 1,334 acres.In a step towards heralding operations at Jewar airport, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) on October 31 conducted a successful calibration flight — a crucial first step to ensure the accuracy of an airport’s systems, including navigation, communication and radar.Story continues below this ad An artist’s impression of a bird’s eye view of the completed airport. (Special Arrangement)While the airport’s date of inauguration is yet to be announced, state government sources said the first of the three phases would be inaugurated in November.India’s largest airport?As India rapidly expands its airport infrastructure — with a slew of upgraded and greenfield airports — Jewar is the newest addition to that list. The airport, once completed, is expected to be among India’s biggest.Commissioned in 2021 to lighten the existing passenger load on Delhi’s IGI Airport, which handled nearly 8 crore fliers in 2024, Jewar airport is expected to handle 1.2 crore passengers annually in the first phase. Officials said its passenger capacity in phases two and three is expected to rise to 3 crore and 5 crore, respectively.For now, under the Rs 6,500-crore phase one of the airport operations, Jewar will have one runway and one terminal, though officials said there are plans for six runways and four terminals in all.Story continues below this adUnder phase one, the airport is expected to handle 30 flights, including 25 to major domestic destinations such as Lucknow, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Dehradun; three international flights to Zurich, Singapore and Dubai; and two cargo flights. The state government, which would want to showcase the airport ahead of the 2027 elections, is in talks with major airlines on starting operations at the Jewar facility.“We have been working on this project since 2019. Sometimes, it feels like we started just a month ago. Its journey has been a turbulent one — from designing and constructing to preparing to operate a greenfield airport,” says Christoph Schnellmann, CEO of the Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (YIAPL), a 100% subsidiary of Zurich Airport International AG, which is overseeing the development of the Jewar airport.The need for an airportThose heading from Noida towards the upcoming airport will have to get on to the Yamuna Expressway. Dissecting green fields, this 165-km six-lane highway is flanked by babool trees and bursts of bougainvillea vines weighed down by blossoms in a riot of pink, white and orange.A line of villages enroute — Dankaur, Rabupura, Rustampur and Nagla Hukum Singh — end at Jewar, where green signboards point towards the upcoming airport.Story continues below this adAt his office in Greater Noida, Shailendra Bhatia, 49, Officer on Special Duty, Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA), talks of how it all began. YEIDA, the government agency responsible for development along the Yamuna Expressway, is overseeing the airport project on behalf of the UP government.Around 2017, says Bhatia, government and AAI officials realised that increasing passenger load would one day saturate IGI airport. “We also had the NCR Planning Board’s (NCRPB) functional plan on transport for NCR-2032, which stated that the second airport should be built somewhere near Jewar,” he says.The plan for a second airport in Delhi-NCR goes back to 2001, when the Aviation Ministry commissioned a feasibility report on a second airport in Delhi-NCR. After several surveys and meetings between the Ministry and AAI, in 2017, the first Obstacle Limitation Surfaces Survey (OLS, which checks for potential obstructions around an airport for safety of planes), was conducted.The Jewar airport site is strategically located — about 85 km from IGI airport, 50 km from Noida and 87 km from the Hindon airport. The tourist city of Agra is 130 km from the airport and Aligarh a mere 65 km away.Story continues below this adCalling the location of Jewar airport “its USP”, YEIDA CEO Rakesh Kumar Singh says it will cater to the passengers of western Uttar Pradesh. “Visitors to Agra, Mathura and Vrindavan will no longer have to land in Delhi and spend hours travelling. They can land in Jewar,” he says.Passengers from Aligarh, Hathras, Moradabad, Meerut, Bulandshahr and Faridabad, too, stand to benefit. “The NCR runs on the Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways; we are now connecting it to the airport. Also, cities on the banks of the Ganga, from Haridwar to Bijnor, are on the Ganga Expressway — we plan to connect this route to the airport,” he says.“Once the airport is ready, we will have a lot of aprons. Parking charges for airlines will be low and we will have more late-night flights. So passengers can expect cheaper flights out of Jewar,” he says.Passengers can also expect a unique airport experience, promises YIAPL CEO Schnellmann. “Once passengers clear their security checks, they will enter a huge courtyard. Since it will be a digital airport, they will have a lot of things to experience, including a mix of retail and duty-free offerings from both global brands and local treasures, the best of airport dining with premium lounges, diverse multi-cuisine dining options and spa services designed for ultimate relaxation,” he says.Story continues below this adA hurdle and a race to finishBack at the airport site, construction is on at a frenzied pace — on runways, the main terminal, sewage treatment plants, office blocks and data centres, among others.While some workers move against the towering golden frame to tie the Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower’s reinforcement bars, others transfer buckets of concrete to the pillars that will eventually connect the passenger boarding bridge. Next to them, workers — their voices drowned by the sound of engines — help the massive arms of cranes swing into action using ropes and signals.In 2020, the scene looked vastly different.Back then, just as the team prepared to step up operations, the pandemic hit, catching them off guard. They had to rethink and recalibrate the way they worked, before eventually moving to video conferencing.“Typically, architects fly in with their plans, but we did it all via video conference. In the first two years, nearly 80% of the team started working with us, but we were yet to work face-to-face,” recalls the CEO.Story continues below this adTalking about the airport design, he says it has “borrowed” from the heritage and culture of the country.“We have used red sandstone for the terminal building. It will emulate the look of a haveli, where the courtyard brings in fresh air and sunlight. A translucent, wavy roof, inspired by the region’s important rivers, will emulate the flow of a water body. The flight of steps in the terminal forecourt mimic those in the ghats of Varanasi and Haridwar,” he says, adding that the building will also have ornamental lattice screens.The design elements, he says, have been chosen keeping in mind the larger goal — that of a world-class airport that’s committed to an ambitious net-zero emissions target.“We have ensured that the impact on the environment remains minimal,” he adds.Story continues below this adLife outside the airportThe approach road to the airport, once an expanse of farmland, is now lined with a string of real-estate offices, many with neon-lit sign boards. Inside, the owners, mostly farmers whose land was acquired for the project, say property rates have shot up over the last six months, from Rs 25,000 a sq yard to Rs 60,000 a sq yard.After the first round of acquisition in 2019, residents of six villages were rehabilitated at an R&R (Relief and Rehabilitation) colony in Jewar, nearly 3.5 km away. Since then, with land prices shooting up, the compensation package, too, has been increased on the demand of villagers. While farmers whose land was acquired in the first phase were offered Rs 2,100 per sqm and plots, the compensation package went up to Rs 3,100 per sqm for the second phase and Rs 4,300 per sqm for the third and fourth phases.Talking about land acquisition, YEIDA’s Bhatia says the most challenging part was convincing farmers, who had owned the land for generations, to part with it. “They were attached to their land. Since we did not want to hurt their sentiments, we came up with a rehabilitation plan and a settlement that felt like their old village,” he says.However, most people at the R&R colony said they had used up their compensation money to build new homes and now had no other means of income.Story continues below this adRam Vir Singh, 65, a former resident of Nangla Ganeshi village, says he received a compensation of nearly Rs 25 lakh for his 6.17 bigha. Singh, a farmer, used Rs 15 lakh of that money to build a two-storeyed house and also bought some farming land in Aligarh.“Before he lost his job two months ago, my son worked as a canteen boy at a private firm in Greater Noida. We have money for now, but not for the long run,” he says.While land has already been acquired from six villages in the district for the second phase of the airport, land has also been identified for the third phase.At Neemka Shahjahanpur, one of the villages that have been identified for acquisition in the third phase, Ajay Atri, 43, a farmer who owns 1 bigha, says, “I am ready to part with my land and start a business with the compensation money. I don’t want my children to become a farmer like me. There is no money in agriculture.”However, his brother Sanjay, 45, demanded higher compensation. “Only 70% of the residents have agreed to the acquisition. We are close to Bulandshahr, our land rates will go up anyway,” he says.At Khwajapur, another village identified for the third phase, Pradeep, 23, smiles when asked about his future plans. “First, I will first buy a phone. Then, I will open a car wash. Most people here have no business sense beyond these fields,” says Pradeep, a Class 5 dropout.Salman Khan, an influencer from Alawalpur, a village adjoining the airport site, who has over 1 lakh followers on Instagram and 2 lakh on YouTube, is excited about the airport and the upcoming film city in the district. Dressed in white pants and a purple shirt, Khan hopes that with the airport, his life will take off, too. “I spend a lot of money travelling to Mumbai and Delhi. Flights from here will cut down my travel cost… I also plan to make some videos at the airport,” he says.