Air travel from Indore gets more convenient as T-1 opens today

Indore: The renovated Terminal-1 at Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport will be virtually inaugurated on Sunday by Union civil aviation minister K Ram Mohan Naidu. The flight operations from this terminal will commence from April after final security clearances.Spread across 6,000 sq meters, the facility is designed to handle 10 lakh passengers annually.The Rs 50 crore renovation project, which took nearly two years to complete, is a strategic move to de-clutter the airport.T-1: Key features14 check-in counters, seating for 400 passengersDedicated to 16 small aircraft (ATR-type), handling roughly 2,739 passengers dailyReserved lounges for arrivals/departures; 150-slot car parking; specialised check-in for persons with disabilities.Three state-of-the-art X-ray machines & advanced detection equipment for faster processing24/7 Operations Return as Runway Repairs ConcludeIndore: After 14 months of nighttime restriction, the airport is finally returning to a round-the-clock schedule. The Rs 25 crore runway recarpeting project for the 2,754-metre airstrip is in its final stages and will be completed by the end of March.Since Feb last year, flights were halted for eight hours each night (10.30 pm to 6:30 am) to allow for bitumen layering. "Maintaining operations on a single runway while replacing the old surface was a challenge, but we are now ready to resume night flights in April," an airport official confirmed.|A café & a library tooIndore: On Sunday, the airport will also see inauguration of Udaan Cafe. This new initiative will provide essential refreshments at rates comparable to city street prices. The move is expected to bring massive relief to common and middle-class travellers. According to MP Shankar Lalwani, these facilities are part of a continuous effort to enhance the passenger experience, making air travel not just faster, but also more affordable.To make waiting time more productive, there is also a proposal to launch a library service. An air passenger can now browse a wide collection of books from various authors, borrow it for reading during the flight and deposit it at their destination airport upon arrival.