New RGIA airport at Hyderabad to become operational from Sunday, 23 March
20 Mar 2008
New Delhi: The new Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamsabad (RGIA), near Hyderabad, will become operational from Sunday, 23 March. This week long delay was necessitated due to "operational" reasons, including shifting of equipment from the old Begumpet airport, which will now be shut down for commercial operations.
Earlier, the RGIA was to become operational on 16 March.
According to an official notification, the new airport will become operational from 00:01 hours of 23 March.
Earlier, on 14 March, the GMR Group had said that the RGIA was "ready in all aspects." It said the civil aviation ministry had been approached by some airlines "seeking more time to begin operations" from the RGIA.
"Acceding to their requests, the ministry has advised us to begin operations in a few days. We will intimate the new date and will commence operations soon," GMR had added.