Wardha Airport
The tourist city of Wardha in the state of Maharashtra in India is served by a number of airports, the most important of which is Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport. This is generally considered as a customs airport that, besides serving Wardha and the adjoining tourist cities, also caters to the transport needs of the city of Nagpur. Official statistics peg the number of passengers handled by this airport to be around 5000, with six major domestic airlines and one international airline connecting the airport to more than twelve domestic destinations and one international destination in Sharjah.
History of Wardha Airport
Even though the airport was established during the First World War, well before India attained independence in 1947, it started functioning on an official basis only since the Second World War when the British renovated it and used it as a staging base for their operations in Asia. Over the course of time, most of the operations of the adjoining Sonegaon Airport were transferred to the Babasaheb Ambedkar Airport in view of the growing traffic and tourism potential of the region in which it is situated.
Facilities at Wardha Airport
The airport was lent an altogether different look with the inauguration of the New Integrated Terminal Building by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in April 2008. The facilities available here are –
- Central air conditioning
- Visual Docking Guidance System serving as the mainstay of the passenger bridges
- Bagging conveyors
- Lifts and escalators
- FIDS and CCTVs at regular intervals
- Car parking and aerobridges
- ATM counters
Major airlines and their destinations
Air Arabia – Sharjah
Jet Airways – Chennai, Mumbai
GoAir – Delhi, Mumbai, Srinagar
Air India – Raipur, Delhi, Mumbai
JetKonnect – Mumbai, Bangalore
IndiGo – Delhi, Goa, Indore, Kolkata, Jaipur, Mumbai, Srinagar, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore