A view of the new integrated terminal at the Vijayawada Airport in Gannavaram, scheduled for completion by March 31, 2026. | Photo credit: GN RAO
After much delay, work on the new integrated terminal at the Vijayawada International Airport in Gannavaram seems to have picked up pace to meet the new deadline of March 31, 2026.
While Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu initially set a completion target of June 2025, the date was later pushed to December and now to March 2026. However, according to the airport authorities, the commissioning of the new terminal will take another two months.
More than a hundred workers are involved in the construction of the terminal, the foundation stone of which was laid in 2018. Since then, the work has seen many hiccups, including a pandemic that slowed its progress.
Currently, more than 80% of the terminal is complete, including glass work, interiors, floors and baggage belts, airport authorities said. After opening to the public in June-July, all airport traffic would move to the new terminal, which will accommodate 3.5 million passengers a year, have domestic and international facilities under one roof, and have better facilities than the existing one, including more escalators and a more inline baggage system.
The existing terminal has two different terminals for domestic and international flights and has a passenger handling capacity of 2.03 million passengers per annum (MPPA).
According to airport authorities, the new terminal, which will cost approximately ₹611 crore, will have 24 check-in counters and handle 1,200 passengers (800 domestic and 400 international) at peak times, slightly below the current handling capacity of 1,272 passengers, including 972 domestic and 300 international passengers.
However, the new terminal will have 8 immigration/customs counters, 6 departure gates, 3 of which are remote. The two remote departure gates are for domestic flights and one for international flights. It will also have enough space to accommodate 648 vehicles in a parking space.
Notably, the new terminal will have six aerobridges, eliminating the need to transport passengers from the terminal to the runway. The area of the new terminal building is 36,075 m2. Right now, passengers are transported to the track by bus.
As per the Chief Minister’s instructions, the new terminal building will have themes of Amaravati Buddhist stupas and Kuchipudi dances. According to the airport authorities, there will be six figures of Kuchipudi dancers near the arrival and departure gates and passenger boarding bridge hubs; there will be an Amaravati stupa near the front of the airport.
It may be noted that currently Vijayawada International Airport is connected to Bengaluru, Kadapa, Hyderabad, Chennai, Tirupati, Visakhapatnam, Mumbai, Delhi and Kurnool.
Published – 14 Dec 2025 20:18 IST
