Surat Airport

Surat Airport is a domestic airport located in Magdalla, 11 kilometres (7 mi) southwest of Surat in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The airport, with a total area of 312ha, currently caters to scheduled airline services as well as private aircraft and is also home to a flying training school.HistorySurat Airport was built by the state government of Gujarat. During the 1990s, Vayudoot and Gujarat Airways flew to Surat Airport but both discontinued their flights in May 1994 and January 2000, respectively. The airport, with a airstrip and an adjoining 60x apron was then transferred to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) in 2003, who began to modernise the airport. After a failed initial attempt in July 2004 to connect Surat with Mumbai and Bhavnagar due to poor airport infrastructure, the now defunct airline Air Deccan operated an ATR 42 aircraft daily from November 2004 to July 2005.Surat remained the only city in the world with a population of over 4.6 million people without a functioning airport until commercial services resumed on 6 May 2007 with an Indian Airlines Airbus A319 flight to Delhi flagged off by Indian Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel at 12:40 IST. By this time, major improvements had been made to the airport.