greater noida jewars metamorphosis from nondescript village to indias newest airport town is happening fast and the large complex that is driving this transformation embodies this changethe contours of what will become ncrs second international airport by october next year have started taking shape as 3000 workers of tata projects toil away night and day at the site with christoph schnellman the airports ceo at the helmoutside the compound the rush to cash in on the real estate boom that has been seen in the region ever since the project was announced is immediately apparent property dealer signboards with aircraft pictures abound on the sikandrabadjewar road off the yamuna expressway that leads to the site within the airport sites boundaries hardly a minute passes without activity kitchens have been set up where workers from different states and regions cook their staple diets theres no one size or thali in this case fits all for the hardworking bunch in a dust bowl where may mornings feel several degrees hotter than the early 40 degrees reading that the weather app showssoon its going to be a year since work began work started last june and so far about 60 lakh safe man hours have been put in without any major injury safety is the prime focus as we build what will be the most modern and wellconnected indian airport within the stipulated time frame schnellman a flughafen zurich veteran who in 200708 played a key role when it was building the new bengaluru airport told toi at the sitea 38metrehigh air traffic control atc tower the terminal building a fuel farm the taxiway the runway and internal approach roads are all being simultaneously built the terminal buildings starting point will have an underground approach that will connect with the multimodal transport hub which in turn will link the airport up with any rail network like rapidx or metro that might be built in future the atc tower will be handed over to the airports authority of india which handles this function between january and march 2024 so they can start putting the required systems in place once operational ncr will have delhis igia functioning like new yorks jfk or londons heathrow and the noida international airport nia as la guardia or gatwick while nia will essentially cater to domestic traffic its runway can handle big widebody aircraft too that are used for medium to ultralonghaul international flights the distance between igia and nia is about 90 km and till other proposed connectivity modes are ready commute between the two will be mainly by road and take anywhere from 90120 minutesthe nia aims to launch passenger flight operations by december 2024schnellman marvels at the indian growth story with aviation growing here at the fastest pace in the world ever since we started planning this project from the bidding phase in 2019 we have been upwardly revising the traffic projections this airport will be built in four phases with our