Airport questions come in exactly one shape: an airport name is given and you supply the city, or a city is given and you supply whose name the airport carries. The list is small, it is stable, and it is one of the easiest sets of marks in static general knowledge. This post arranges the airports exams actually ask about, grouped by region, with the person each is named after, followed by previous year questions.
Key Points (Quick Revision)
- Delhi — Indira Gandhi International Airport
- Mumbai — Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport
- Kolkata — Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport
- Bengaluru — Kempegowda International Airport
- Hyderabad — Rajiv Gandhi International Airport
- Airports Authority of India was constituted in 1995, headquartered in New Delhi
1. The metro airports
| City | Airport | Named after |
|---|---|---|
| Delhi | Indira Gandhi International Airport | Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi |
| Mumbai | Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport | Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj |
| Kolkata | Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport | Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose |
| Bengaluru | Kempegowda International Airport | Kempegowda, founder of Bengaluru |
| Hyderabad | Rajiv Gandhi International Airport | Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi |
| Chennai | Chennai International Airport | Not named after a person; located at Meenambakkam |
| Ahmedabad | Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport | Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel |
| Kochi | Cochin International Airport | Not named after a person |
Two of these carry extra facts that are asked separately. Cochin International Airport is the one associated with two firsts — it was the first Indian airport built under a public-private partnership, and it is widely cited as the first airport to run fully on solar power. Chennai is the standard trap in a question asking which metro airport is not named after a person.
2. North and central India
| City | Airport |
|---|---|
| Lucknow | Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport |
| Varanasi | Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport |
| Amritsar | Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport |
| Chandigarh | Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport |
| Udaipur | Maharana Pratap Airport |
| Indore | Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport |
| Bhopal | Raja Bhoj Airport |
| Gwalior | Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia Airport |
| Leh | Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport |
| Srinagar | Sheikh ul-Alam International Airport |
| Dehradun | Jolly Grant Airport |
| Ayodhya | Maharishi Valmiki International Airport |
The three most asked from this group are Varanasi with Lal Bahadur Shastri, Lucknow with Chaudhary Charan Singh and Amritsar with Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee. All three pair a city with a name that appears nowhere else in the list, which makes them reliable marks once fixed.
3. East and North-East India
| City | Airport |
|---|---|
| Patna | Jay Prakash Narayan International Airport |
| Ranchi | Birsa Munda Airport |
| Bhubaneswar | Biju Patnaik International Airport |
| Jharsuguda | Veer Surendra Sai Airport |
| Durgapur | Kazi Nazrul Islam Airport |
| Guwahati | Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport |
| Agartala | Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport |
| Imphal | Bir Tikendrajit International Airport |
| Aizawl | Lengpui Airport |
| Port Blair | Veer Savarkar International Airport |
Ranchi with Birsa Munda and Bhubaneswar with Biju Patnaik are the two most asked here, and both are also asked as freedom-movement or state-leader questions elsewhere, so the name earns its place twice. Port Blair with Veer Savarkar is the standard Andaman and Nicobar answer.
4. West and South India
| City | Airport |
|---|---|
| Nagpur | Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport |
| Nanded | Shri Guru Gobind Singh Ji Airport |
| Kolhapur | Chhatrapati Rajaram Maharaj Airport |
| Goa (Mopa) | Manohar International Airport |
| Rajkot | Rajkot International Airport, at Hirasar |
| Kozhikode | Calicut International Airport |
| Thiruvananthapuram | Trivandrum International Airport |
| Kannur | Kannur International Airport |
| Tiruchirappalli | Tiruchirappalli International Airport |
| Visakhapatnam | Visakhapatnam International Airport |
Nagpur with Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar is the most asked in this group. Airports in this region are also where the topic changes most, because new terminals, new greenfield airports and renamings have been announced steadily. If a question turns on a very recent airport or a renaming rather than on the established list, confirm it against a current source before relying on an older note.
5. Facts about airports and the Airports Authority
| Fact | Answer |
|---|---|
| Body that manages most civil airports in India | Airports Authority of India (AAI) |
| Year AAI was constituted | 1995, by merging the International Airports Authority and the National Airports Authority |
| Headquarters of AAI | New Delhi |
| Ministry AAI works under | Ministry of Civil Aviation |
| First airport in India built under a public-private partnership | Cochin International Airport |
| Regional connectivity scheme for smaller airports | UDAN, under the Regional Connectivity Scheme |
| Regulator for economic regulation of major airports | Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) |
| Body responsible for civil aviation safety regulation | Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) |
The UDAN scheme, whose name expands to Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik, is asked as often as the airport names themselves. Keep it attached to regional connectivity and to the revival of unserved and underserved airstrips. Passenger-traffic rankings and the count of operational airports change every year, so those are figures to verify rather than memorise.
6. Previous year questions
- Indira Gandhi International Airport is located in which city? — Delhi
- Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport is in which city? — Mumbai
- Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport serves which city? — Kolkata
- Kempegowda International Airport is located in which city? — Bengaluru
- Rajiv Gandhi International Airport is in which city? — Hyderabad
- Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport serves which city? — Varanasi
- Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport is in which city? — Lucknow
- Birsa Munda Airport is located in which city? — Ranchi
- Biju Patnaik International Airport serves which city? — Bhubaneswar
- Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport is in which city? — Nagpur
- Veer Savarkar International Airport is located where? — Port Blair
- Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport serves which city? — Ahmedabad
- Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport is in which city? — Indore
- In which year was the Airports Authority of India constituted? — 1995
- What does UDAN stand for? — Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik
7. How to revise this topic
Revise from name to city, not city to name. Questions overwhelmingly give the airport name and ask for the city, and the names are the harder half to recall. Read the tables in that direction and you are practising the actual question.
Group the names by category rather than by state. Prime Ministers give you Delhi, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad's neighbour set; freedom fighters and tribal leaders give you Ranchi, Port Blair and Imphal; regional founders and rulers give you Bengaluru, Indore, Bhopal and Udaipur. Grouping this way means a blank on one name does not take the whole region with it.
Finally, keep the eight institutional facts in section 5 separate from the airport list. They are asked as their own questions, they are stable, and they take ten minutes to fix.
8. Frequently Asked Questions
Which airport in India is not named after a person?
Among the metro airports, Chennai International Airport and Cochin International Airport are the usual answers. This is a common question form, so it is worth knowing which of the large airports carry a personal name and which do not.
Which was the first airport in India built under a public-private partnership?
Cochin International Airport in Kerala. It is also widely cited as the first airport in the world to operate fully on solar power, and both facts are asked separately.
What does UDAN stand for?
Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik. It is the regional connectivity scheme intended to make air travel affordable and to revive unserved and underserved airports and airstrips across the country.
Who manages the airports in India?
The Airports Authority of India, constituted in 1995 by merging the International Airports Authority of India and the National Airports Authority. It is headquartered in New Delhi and works under the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Several major airports are operated under public-private partnership arrangements.
How many airport names do I need to remember?
The thirty-odd in the tables above cover nearly everything asked. New airports and renamings are announced regularly, so treat the very recent ones as current affairs to be verified rather than as part of the fixed static list.
For more Static GK topics in simple language, see our National Highways and Transport in India and Superlatives of India posts, or browse the Static GK section. Preparing for a specific exam? Start with the SSC CGL guide or join the 100 Hour GS Course.