Departure
99%
vs 95% ▲ 4
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport (VANP/NAG) serves Nagpur, the winter capital of Maharashtra, from a joint civil-military field at Sonegaon some eight kilometres southwest of the city centre. A single long runway with a full ILS, shared with the Indian Air Force's Nagpur Air Force Station, makes this an interesting central-India waypoint with a history stretching back to the First World War.
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport, known by its ICAO code VANP and IATA code NAG, is the principal airport serving Nagpur in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It sits at Sonegaon, about eight kilometres southwest of the city, and shares its site with the Indian Air Force's Nagpur Air Force Station. The airport is operated by the Airports Authority of India together with GMR Group and MIHAN India Private Limited, and it was renamed in 2005 in honour of B. R. Ambedkar, a principal architect of the Indian Constitution. For a simulator pilot the field offers a single very long, ILS-equipped runway, a mix of civil airline and military traffic, and a flying history running from Royal Air Force use in the First World War to a modern Air India Boeing maintenance facility.
The airport lies at Sonegaon, roughly eight kilometres southwest of Nagpur city, in central India. It is a dual-use aerodrome, sharing its runway and airfield infrastructure with the Indian Air Force's Nagpur Air Force Station, so pilots can expect military as well as civil movements in the vicinity.
The field has one physical runway, 14/32, oriented northwest-southeast. It is 10,498 feet long, with a hard (asphalt) surface, and is lit. An ILS is provided for runway 32. Field elevation is 1,020 feet.
Air-to-ground communications are available on 287.2 MHz. Area control can be reached on 123.9 MHz, approach control on 122.7 MHz, ground on 121.9 MHz, and tower on 118.1 MHz. An ILS is fitted to runway 32 to support instrument approaches.
The airfield was commissioned during the First World War, in 1917-18, for use by the Royal Flying Corps and later the Royal Air Force. Its buildings were renovated during the Second World War, when it served as an RAF staging airfield, before being transferred to the Indian Government following independence. Brisk civilian traffic led to new terminal buildings, complete with refreshment rooms, retiring rooms and visitor's galleries, being built in 1953. From January 1949 until October 1973 Sonegaon Airport was the hub of the Night Air Mail Service, in which aircraft departed nightly from Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras carrying regional mail, meeting at Nagpur to exchange loads before returning to their home bases by morning. The airport's traffic remained predominantly civilian until the formation of 44 Wing and the arrival of Indian Air Force Il-76 transport aircraft in 2003. In the 2010s the field faced a licensing risk after a long-abandoned Boeing 720, parked since 1991, was found to be sitting closer to the runway than permitted; it was relocated some 600 metres away to the northeast of the airfield in 2015-2016. From 2005 the airport has been developed as a planned Multimodal International Hub, with a build-operate-transfer scheme covering a second runway, new terminal and cargo complex. An upgraded Integrated Terminal Building was inaugurated in April 2008. Since 2011 the airport has also hosted a Boeing-built maintenance, repair and overhaul facility on fifty acres of land, run as Air India Engineering Services, with two large hangars able to accommodate wide-body aircraft such as the Boeing 777 and 787.
The airport is operated by the Airports Authority of India in conjunction with GMR Group and MIHAN India Private Limited, and it remains home to the Indian Air Force's Nagpur Air Force Station alongside its civil operations. In the 2024-25 financial year it handled around 2.9 million passengers, making it the 27th-busiest airport in India, with roughly 8,000 passengers a day. It is served by four domestic airlines and two international carriers, connecting Nagpur to Sharjah and Doha as well as fourteen domestic destinations, through a single terminal with two aerobridges.