NOIDA: Six years ago, they tilled these fields. On Monday, they will fly from them.The journey from farmland to international airport will come a full circle for farmers in Jewar when 170 of them board the inaugural flight from Noida International Airport, synthesising with the milestone they helped shape by giving land for the project.The farmer flight, an IndiGo aircraft, will take off for Lucknow at 8.30am, minutes after the inaugural flight, also an IndiGo from Lucknow, touches down, ushering in a new era of civil aviation in Delhi-NCR as its second international airport becomes operational. IndiGo 6E 2278 is scheduled to land at 8.05am after departing from Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport at 7.05am. The inaugural service is sold out.Union civil aviation minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu, govt officials and representatives of Noida International Airport will receive the inaugural flight. UP assembly speaker Satish Mahana, along with ministers and senior officials, are expected to be among the first passengers arriving from Lucknow.But the emotional centrepiece of will be the special farmers’ flight.Organised with the help of Jewar MLA Dhirendra Singh, the service will also have 20 women boarding the flight. “The passengers will include farmers who surrendered their land for the airport and others displaced by the acquisition for associated projects. After reaching Lucknow at 9.20am, they are scheduled to meet chief minister Yogi Adityanath and convey their gratitude for the project before returning to Noida later in the day,” an official said.Singh described the day as “historical” for Jewar and UP. “The very farmers who once cultivated these lands will now undertake their first air journey from the international airport built on them. It is a moment of pride not only for Jewar but for the entire nation,” he added.The special service will depart just ahead of the airport’s first scheduled commercial outbound flight to Bengaluru at 8.35am.Shailendra Bhatia, nodal officer of NIAL, UP govt’s special purpose vehicle for the airport, said all preparations for the launch are complete. “We are ready to welcome the inaugural flight and passengers,” he said.For its opening day, the airport has put in place extensive security and emergency-response arrangements in line with Bureau of Civil Aviation Security protocols. The facility will be protected by a multilayered security system, AI-enabled surveillance and nearly 1,030 CISF personnel.A dedicated airport police station has also become operational. The airport and runway are under CCTV surveillance with facial-recognition capabilities, behaviour analysis and automated alerts for suspicious activity. Dog squads, firefighting units, medical emergency teams and quick-response teams have also been deployed.The airport, inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi on March 28, is expected to serve passengers from Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Meerut, and other western UP districts as well as east Delhi and parts of Haryana and Uttarakhand. Akasa Air is scheduled to begin services from Bengaluru and Navi Mumbai to Noida on Tuesday.
