The Minister of Civil Aviation, Ram Mohan Naidu, chaired a high-level meeting at Delhi Airport to review readiness for hub-and-spoke operations. Senior officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Bureau of Immigration, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, Customs, Airports Authority of India, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, CISF, DigiYatra, Delhi International Airport Limited and leading airlines attended. He led an on-ground walkthrough of passenger flows and inspected the Security Hold Area at Terminal 3.

The ministry noted that the National Civil Aviation Policy 2016 sets a roadmap for India to be an aviation hub for domestic passengers by 2030 and globally by 2047. An International Aviation Hub Strategy includes calibrated granting of points of call to foreign carriers, renegotiation of bilateral agreements to strengthen Indian carriers and liberalisation of domestic codeshare arrangements. Stakeholders discussed operational steps to support these measures.

Officials outlined that the hub-and-spoke model will link Tier-II and Tier-III airports developed under the UDAN scheme with international routes, shortening travel times and improving use of existing infrastructure. The model aims to capture transfer traffic currently routed through foreign hubs by decentralising customs and immigration tasks to spoke locations and decongesting major airports.

The ministry noted that nearly 35 per cent of international passengers from India transit via foreign hubs and the strategy seeks to reverse that trend by developing competitive hubs including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai. Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport has capacity exceeding 100 million (mn) passengers annually, handles about 50 per cent of northern region traffic and manages around 50,000 daily transfers. Authorities are creating slot banks to speed transfers.

The plan also targets air cargo efficiency through removal of re?screening for transshipment cargo and digitisation of approvals to reduce turnaround times. By 2047 the initiative is projected to generate approximately 16 mn direct and indirect jobs and contribute nearly USD 1.4 tn to the economy. Officials highlighted wide?body aircraft orders and the use of technology such as DigiYatra to support hub operations.