Dholera International Airport
The airport is Dholera's most emotionally charged milestone, because it is the one anchor everyone can picture. Here is what is concrete: an SPV called DIACL (AAI 51 percent, Gujarat 33 percent, NICDC 16 percent) is building a greenfield international airport about 20 km from the SIR and 80 km from Ahmedabad, sized for wide-body aircraft from day one, with a cargo terminal of about 2,500 sq m in the first phase.
What has physically happened
Runway, taxiways and the ATC tower are reported complete. On 4 June 2026 an AAI aircraft (VT-CNS) made the first trial landing near Pipli village, water-cannon salute and all. That event matters technically, not just ceremonially: it demonstrates a usable runway and moves the project into the calibration and licensing phase. Phase-1 civil works were contracted around Rs 636 cr with the terminal EPC at about Rs 333 cr; passenger capacity figures in circulation vary (about 2 million initially is the safest citation, and we flag that sources dispute it).
Status checklist, August 2026
The honest date history
This airport has been "opening next year" since roughly 2010. The December 2025 target slipped; late 2026 is the current reported window, with some coverage citing December 2026 for full passenger operations. We publish the target with its date and its history, because a buyer pricing land off an airport date should know the date's track record. The structural fact that survives every slip: the runway now exists, and airports that reach trial-landing stage open.
What it means for plot buyers
Operational airports change land markets twice: once on announcement (already priced in, years ago) and again on commissioning, when jobs, cargo and passenger flows become real. Position matters more than proximity slogans: land near airport access roads and the corridor between airport and city benefits from movement; land directly under flight paths carries use restrictions that sellers rarely volunteer. Ask for position relative to the airport zone in survey-number terms, then verify it.