The Airports Authority of India is constructing a new state-of -the-art terminal building with passenger handling capacity of 4.5 million at the cost of Rs 800 crores in order to meet the ever increasing passenger traffic at Patna airport. The airport was originally designed for handling 0.7 million passengers. With the tremendous growth in aviation in the past few years, the airport has handled 2.11 million passengers in the year 2016-17. I
The construction work for the new terminal building will start from April, 2018. This new terminal building at Patna Airport will take care of 2250 passengers during peak hour.
In addition to this, a new terminal building at Bihita with a passenger handling capacity of 5 million is also planned at the total cost of Rs 800 crores. The work for construction will commence from September, 2018.
Meanwhile, Airport Director, Patna, has taken various steps to ease the congestion in terminal building and Security Hold Area (SHA). A temporary structure with seating capacity of 300 passengers has been erected outside the terminal building. Additional frisking booth has been added in security check which is operational during peak hours. The work for the expansion of SHA on the first floor will be completed by March 2018. It will also include an additional boarding gate which will be operational from February 2018.