Agartala airport renamed as Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya airport

      Agartala airport renamed as Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya airport.



       Agartala Airport (IATA: IXA, ICAO: VEAT) is a domestic airport located 12 kilometres (7 miles) northwest of the city of Agartala, the capital of the state of Tripura in India . It is administered by the Airports Authority of India(AAI).^[4] It is the second busiest airport in northeast India after Guwahati and is proposed to be upgraded as an international airport.

          The airport was designed and built in 1942 by the Maharaja of Tripura Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya Bahadur. It had one primary runway, 05/23, which is now used as a taxiway to Runway 18/36.

During World War II, the airport was used by the 4th Combat Cargo Group (4th CCG) of the United States Army Air Forces Tenth Air Force, flying Curtiss C-46 Commando transport aircraft over Burma. The airport was used as a supply point from which the unit air-dropped pallets of supplies and ammunition to the advancing Allied forces on the ground.^[7]

The 4th CCG operated from the airport during December 1944 and January 1945, after which it moved to Chittagong.

The airport has experienced international operations in the distant past when Indian Airlines used to fly for various locations like Dhaka-Tejgaon Airport and Khulna in East Pakistan/Bangladesh from Agartala.

In 2015, Airports Authority of India started upgrading the airport to international standards.^[8] AAI was spending INR500 crore on upgrade including the new terminal building with all the work to be completed by fy 2019-20 (c. Dec 2017)