PM Narendra Modi to open Uttar Pradesh's ninth airport in Kushinagar today

NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh will on Wednesday get its ninth airport handling scheduled passenger flights when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates the Kushinagar International Airport.
A senior UP government official said in 2017 only four airports in the state had regular flights - Lucknow, Varanasi, Gorakhpur and Agra. While Prayagraj, Kanpur, Bareilly and Hindon have since been added that list, Kushinagar will get onboard Wednesday - indicating a more than doubling of operational airports in the recent past.
The state's biggest airport - in Greater Noida's Jewar - is going to become operational by mid-2024 and serve as Delhi-NCR's second hub. Ayodhya is going to get Maryada Puroshottam Shri Ram Airport.
Once these two are ready, the number of international airports in UP will rise to five - up from the three that include Lucknow, Varanasi and Kushinagar.
Bareilly Airport, which opened a few months back, now has direct connectivity with Mumbai and Bengaluru and the jhumka city is now the aerial gateway to nearby industrial areas and the Kumaon hills. A senior UP government official said work is currently on at airports in 10 more cities - Aligarh, Azamgarh, Moradabad, Shravasti, Chitrakoot, Sonbhadra, Agra, Saharanpur, Noida and Ayodhya.