Noida International Airport, is thinking about how infrastructure itself needs to change shape. Speaking on the sidelines of the ACFI World Conclave 2026, Jain describes moving away from the old model of separate terminals for separate cargo types in favour of what Noida has built instead: a single, integrated cargo terminal capable of handling pharma, perishables, e-commerce and general cargo under one roof.
Integrated terminals save time, cost and confusion
One Roof for Every Kind of Cargo
If Vashistha’s focus is on stitching partners together, Kiran Jain, Chief Operating Officer, Noida International Airport, is thinking about how infrastructure itself needs to change shape. Speaking on the sidelines of the ACFI World Conclave 2026, Jain describes moving away from the old model of separate terminals for separate cargo types in favour of what Noida has built instead: a single, integrated cargo terminal capable of handling pharma, perishables, e-commerce and general cargo under one roof.
The Economics of Sharing Infrastructure
“It saves you a lot of time and it saves you cost,” she explains, noting that while the handling mechanisms for a pharma product, a fruit shipment and an electronics consignment differ, the manpower and infrastructure serving them do not need to be duplicated. Cool ports sit alongside the airport’s road connectivity, with rail access under discussion with government partners, building toward the kind of multimodal integration the sector has long talked about but rarely delivered in full.
Where Airport Responsibility Ends
On sustainable aviation fuel, Jain is candid about where responsibility sits. As an airport operator, Noida’s role is to bring in partners capable of handling SAF, not to dictate fleet strategy, which she says remains squarely an airline decision.
Visibility That Still Breaks Somewhere Along the Chain
A similar honesty runs through her assessment of digital visibility infrastructure. Rather than calling it cosmetic, she describes a system where individual partners often perform well but reliability breaks down somewhere along the chain, leaving shippers without the end-to-end picture they are asking for.
Betting on Manufacturing and Multimodal Growth
Looking five to ten years out, she ties the airport’s growth prospects to the manufacturing base building up around it, citing electronics and microchips as sectors where India is already showing leadership, alongside agricultural exports that depend on policy and infrastructure catching up with demand.
