Gujarat's Surat Airport declared International Airport

Surat (Gujarat): The Government of India has declared Gujarat's Surat Airport as an 'International Airport', according to an official notification.

As per a notification issued by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on Tuesday, Surat Airport in Gujarat is declared as an International Airport with immediate effect.

Notably, this announcement comes a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new terminal building of Surat Airport, built for Rs 353 crore.

Surat is currently connected to 14 domestic cities -- Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Goa, Goa Mopa, Belgaum, Pune, Jaipur, Udaipur, Indore, Diu and Kishangarh and internationally via Sharjah to the rest of the world. It is handling more than 252 passenger flight movements per week.

As per officials, the Surat airport has a runway of 2906 X 45 metres capable of operating Code 'C' type of aircraft and a terminal building of an area of 8474 square metres.

The new terminal building is equipped to handle 1,200 domestic passengers and 600 international passengers during peak hours and has provision for further increasing the peak hour capacity to 3,000 passengers with annual handling capacity increasing to 55 lakh passengers.