Nagpur: The city airport will be among 30 to be integrated into India’s new hub-and-spoke international aviation framework, Union civil aviation minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu announced on Thursday. The Centre unveiled a major plan aimed at transforming air connectivity for passengers travelling from tier-2 and tier-3 cities.Under the proposed model, six major metro airports — Hyderabad, Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Kolkata — will function as aviation hubs, while cities such as Nagpur will operate as ‘spoke’ airports connected to international destinations through streamlined domestic links.The system is designed to allow passengers to complete immigration and baggage formalities at their originating airport itself before boarding connecting international flights through larger hub airports such as Delhi.The inclusion of Nagpur in the hub-and-spoke model framework is expected to strengthen the city’s role as a future aviation, logistics and cargo hub in central India. The announcement comes alongside the ongoing modernisation and expansion of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport under the public-private partnership model with the GMR Group.“India is preparing to become a global aviation hub through reform, transformation and infrastructure expansion, as advocated by PM Narendra Modi,” Naidu said while speaking about the initiative during events linked to the Nagpur airport handover ceremony and the launch of the country’s first operational hub-and-spoke international connectivity service from Varanasi.Earlier, speaking to the media in Varanasi, the minister said the Centre would add six new destinations under the model within the next six weeks before gradually expanding the system across the country.“This is a very important day for Indian civil aviation because there are high expectations from hub-and-spoke operations,” Naidu said. “People travelling to Dubai, Singapore and other global destinations currently depend on transit connectivity. Now, India has the infrastructure and systems ready to support seamless international travel,” he added.The first operational service under the model was launched in collaboration with Air India, connecting Varanasi to international destinations through New Delhi.Under Air India’s ‘Easy Connect’ initiative, passengers travelling from ‘spoke’ cities will be able to check in baggage at their home airport directly to their final overseas destination without needing to collect or recheck luggage during transit at the hub airport.Naidu said the passengers would also complete immigration formalities at their originating airport, allowing them to transit through hub airports as international passengers rather than domestic travellers. He added that all standard operating procedures and stakeholder coordination mechanisms were now finalised for the rollout.
