The proposed Kalyani airport was presented as a response to capacity constraints at Kolkata’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport. But the project now faces a more fundamental question than land acquisition or passenger demand: whether two airports about 35km apart can operate safely when their runway alignments and flight paths interact with one another.
A retired senior flight captain, Sumanta Roy Chowdhury, has warned the civil aviation ministry and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation that the proposed airport in Kalyani falls on the extended centre line of Kolkata airport’s primary runway. In his assessment, simultaneous operations could bring aircraft using the two airports into conflict and create a serious flight-safety challenge.
Roy Chowdhury told Times of India that a flight taking off from Kalyani could come within 1,000 feet of an aircraft descending towards Kolkata airport. He said such movements could repeatedly trigger collision-avoidance alarms in aircraft, making operations difficult for pilots and air traffic controllers. The claim is an aviation-safety warning, not an official finding that the proposed airport cannot be built or operated.
The concern is significant because airport planning is not limited to the physical runway footprint. A new airport must fit into the surrounding airspace, departure and arrival routes, navigation systems, restricted zones and the operating procedures of nearby airports. In Kalyani’s case, the proposed runway alignment would have to be assessed alongside Kolkata’s existing approach path and the constraints created by other infrastructure in the region.
The Kalyani project was announced in the West Bengal state budget for 2026 as a means of addressing capacity constraints at Kolkata airport, reducing congestion and improving regional air connectivity. In a communication to the land and land reforms department in June, chief secretary Manoj Pant said the airport was being planned on the lines of Noida International Airport in Jewar and Navi Mumbai International Airport. He also said there was no scope to expand the existing Kolkata airport.
That policy framing makes the project more than a new transport facility. It positions Kalyani as a potential second aviation gateway for the Kolkata region, with implications for the distribution of passenger traffic, cargo, road access, land values and future urban growth in Nadia district. The project’s stated purpose, however, depends on the airport being operationally compatible with the system it is intended to supplement.
The state has already begun administrative steps connected to the proposed greenfield airport. The registration department imposed restrictions on property transactions in nine mouzas in Nadia district, including Kalyani, to facilitate land acquisition for the planned 2,000-acre airport. These restrictions signal that the project has moved beyond a broad policy announcement into preparatory land and governance action, even though the airspace questions raised in the report remain under scrutiny.
The most important evidence concerns the vertical and horizontal relationship between aircraft using the two airports. According to the report, aircraft approaching Kolkata airport are descending at about 1,500 to 2,000 feet per minute when they are over Kalyani. A flight taking off from Kalyani, meanwhile, would climb at about 1,000 feet per minute. Roy Chowdhury argues that the combination could create insufficient vertical separation if both airports operate simultaneously.
Other aviators cited in the report also called for closer examination of the proposal. One warned that departures from Kolkata and Kalyani could create converging or conflicting flight paths unless the airspace is substantially redesigned. This places the proposed airport within a wider regional aviation system rather than treating it as an isolated runway and terminal project.
The presence of the Air Force aerodrome at Barrackpore adds another constraint. According to the report, the restricted airspace around Barrackpore limits the options for routing civilian aircraft. Air traffic controllers said a Kalyani departure could not turn right because that movement would breach the restricted zone. A left turn would also be challenging because of the new Ishwar Gupta Bridge over the Hooghly.
These constraints matter because departure routes must be designed around more than the shortest or most convenient path. They must account for protected airspace, terrain and structures, traffic separation, aircraft performance and the arrival and departure movements of nearby airports. When route options are limited, a runway configuration that appears feasible on land can become considerably more complicated in the air.
The report also points to an earlier aviation dispute in the same broad area. Roy Chowdhury said he had joined others in opposing a proposed flight school in Kanchrapara about 30 years ago because of similar concerns. That plan was later shelved. The earlier episode does not establish that the Kalyani airport proposal is unworkable, but it shows that the interaction between aviation activity and Kolkata’s northern airspace has been raised before.
The institutional responsibility for resolving the issue is divided. The state government is advancing the land and airport proposal, while the civil aviation ministry and the DGCA are central to assessing flight safety, operational procedures and the compatibility of the new airport with existing airspace arrangements. Air traffic controllers and aviation specialists would also be involved in evaluating routes, separation standards and operating conditions.
The proposal therefore illustrates a recurring feature of large infrastructure projects: the authority that initiates construction is not necessarily the authority that can certify the system’s operational safety. Land acquisition can proceed through state departments, but an airport cannot become a functioning regional asset without aviation regulators, controllers, airlines and defence authorities resolving the operational framework.
The suggested solution from a veteran air traffic controller is the rollout of a satellite-based navigation network providing autonomous geospatial positioning, navigation and timing. The report presents this as a condition under which two closely located airports with aligned landing strips could function safely. It does not establish whether such a system has been approved, funded, designed or scheduled for Kalyani, and no official response from the civil aviation ministry or DGCA is provided in the supplied material.
That absence is important. The current public record described in the report contains a state-level case for a second airport, land-related administrative action and detailed warnings from aviation professionals. It does not yet contain a published regulatory clearance, a final runway design, an approved airspace plan or an official safety assessment addressing the objections. Those documents would be necessary to determine whether the problem can be solved through route redesign, navigation technology, operational restrictions or changes to the airport’s configuration.
The Kalyani airport debate is consequently not only about whether Kolkata needs additional aviation capacity. It is about whether capacity planning has been integrated with airspace planning from the beginning. The project’s comparison with Jewar and Navi Mumbai underlines its intended regional scale, but the aviation concerns show that a second airport must be evaluated as part of a connected system of runways, approach paths, restricted zones, bridges and control procedures.
For residents and landowners in the nine affected mouzas, the unresolved airspace question adds another layer to the consequences of the project. Property transaction restrictions and possible land acquisition have immediate administrative effects, while the airport’s ultimate feasibility depends on decisions that are being examined by aviation authorities. The sequence makes transparent technical assessment especially important before land and urban development decisions become irreversible.
What the available evidence confirms is that the Kalyani airport proposal has a clear policy objective but faces a material airspace challenge identified by aviation professionals. What remains unresolved is whether the DGCA, the civil aviation ministry, the state government and defence authorities can produce an operational design that safely coordinates Kalyani with Kolkata airport and the Barrackpore airspace. The next decisive milestones will be the project’s formal aviation assessment, airspace redesign proposals and any regulatory clearance for simultaneous operations.