Hyderabad airport’s expansion shaped by tech shifts and passenger growth: GHIAL CEO Pradeep Panicker

Built on empty land in 31 months, Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) has since evolved into a rapidly expanding aviation hub that has had to adapt to unpredictable passenger growth, technological shifts and the complexities of upgrading infrastructure while remaining fully operational, said Pradeep Panicker, CEO of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL), at a panel titled “Collaborative Transformation: Developing and Operating Airports of the Future” at Wings India 2026.

Recalling the early days of the airport, Mr. Panicker said the greenfield project was relatively straightforward. “There was nothing on the land there. We just had to start levelling the land and start building it,” he said, noting that the airport was completed in about 31 months.

The later brownfield expansion, however, presented a different set of challenges. Undertaken on the same southern site as the existing airport, the expansion followed a modular approach, extending from the existing footprint. While this provided an opportunity to learn from experience and correct errors or evolving elements from the earlier phase, it also required navigating the realities of an operational airport.

One of the key challenges was the rapid pace of technological change. Mr. Panicker pointed out that the technology in place in 2008 was no longer adequate by 2024 or 2025. “As a result, older systems often had to be removed and replaced with newer ones.,” he said.

When the airport began operations, it handled around 50 to 55 lakh passengers annually, with projections initially looking at growth to 1.2 crore. However, traffic did not follow predictable patterns. Between 2008 and 2014, passenger numbers increased from 50 lakh to 1 crore. From 2014 to 2019, traffic rose more sharply from 1 crore to 2 crore, an acceleration he described as unprecedented. The latest data by GMR airports shows that in 2024-25, RGIA clocked 2.9 crore passengers including 2.4 crore domestic and 50 lakh international passengers.