Uttar Pradesh Cabinet renames Jewar airport after Narendra Modi

The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet on Friday approved a proposal to rename Noida International Airport, at Jewar, as Narendra Modi International Airport. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the decision marks 25 years since Narendra Modi first became the head of a government, a mark that fell on 7 October, and that it records the state government's thanks for his role in the project. The Cabinet also passed a congratulatory resolution.

Adityanath called the airport a major gift from the prime minister to Uttar Pradesh, and said it would lift the state's economy, industry, tourism and links abroad. Modi inaugurated the airport on 28 March this year. Commercial flights began in June. It is the second major airport for the National Capital Region, after Indira Gandhi International in Delhi, and it sits in Gautam Buddha Nagar, on the eastern edge of the region, aimed at passengers who now cross the city to reach Palam.

A rename at this stage is a sign and a paperwork problem. Tickets already issued for Noida International, airline codes, the Airports Authority listing, highway boards and the IATA entry all use the old name. The Cabinet decision does not itself change the code on a boarding pass. That change needs a notification, an update to airline systems and a period when both names work. The Indian Express report of the Cabinet meeting did not give the date by which the boards will change. Until that date, a passenger searching for Narendra Modi International may not find the flight that still sits under Jewar.

The 25-year mark is specific. Modi became chief minister of Gujarat in October 2001. The Uttar Pradesh government is using that anniversary, not the 2014 general election, as the occasion. The airport is one of the large projects his central government has put in the state Adityanath governs. Naming it now, six months after the inauguration and four months after the first commercial flight, puts the name on a working field rather than on a construction site.

Jewar was chosen because Delhi's main airport is capacity-bound and because the Yamuna Expressway corridor had the land. The first phase is the piece that is open. Later phases are what would make it a true second hub rather than a relief field. Friday's decision does not add a runway or a flight. It changes the name of the phase that is already handling passengers.

Other Indian airports carry political names. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in Mumbai and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Ahmedabad are the precedents travellers already use. A living prime minister's name on a new capital-region airport is a step those precedents do not quite cover. The Cabinet has taken it. The operational test is narrower: whether the June timetable, still filed under Noida International, is updated before the next schedule season, and whether road signs on the Yamuna Expressway change with it.

The vote that matters has already happened. The Cabinet passed the proposal on Friday morning. The remaining work is the notification, the code and the boards. The airport Adityanath described as a gift opened in March. From Friday, the state wants it known by the prime minister's name.