Jay Prakash Narayan International Airport PAT / VEPT

Capital-city gateway for Bihar with strong traffic growth (FY2025-26: 4,386,376 passengers, +14.8% y/y, alongside aircraft movements +19.6% and cargo +23.7%, per AAI's own traffic data) — served purely domestically by Air India, Air India Express, IndiGo, SpiceJet and Alliance Air across 13 Indian cities, with Delhi by far the busiest route (roughly 420 flights/month) and the main connecting point for onward international travel via Delhi's hub. The new ~65,150 sqm, ~10 MPPA terminal (opened May-Jun 2025) eased congestion, but the field remains a single-runway (2,072 m, 07/25) airport whose declared landing distances are further cut by displaced thresholds to 1,938 m (RWY 25) and 1,677 m (RWY 07) because of approach-funnel obstructions, most notably Patna's Secretariat clock tower — AAI and Indian officials have described Patna as a 'restricted'-category international airport as a result, and in July 2025 the Union Civil Aviation Minister said international service there remains commercially unviable because of the short runway despite the airport being nominally open to such operations. CORRECTION FROM DRAFT: the draft incorrectly stated that IndiGo currently flies international routes from Patna to Bangkok, Dubai and Kathmandu and that customs/immigration hours are timed to those flights — no scheduled international passenger service exists at Patna as of Aug 2026 (facts.intl corrected to false); international operations have been suspended since the 1999 IC-814 hijacking fallout, and 2025 plans to revive Kathmandu/Bangkok/Singapore/Myanmar routes alongside the new terminal had not resulted in launched scheduled flights by the time of this record. Also corrected: draft's night-operations framing ('no formal curfew but management urging airlines to add night flights') is updated to reflect secondary reporting that night flights had, in fact, begun by around March 2026 (not independently confirmed against a primary source). Coordinates refined to the AIP's precise ARP fix (25°35'37.18"N 085°05'31.15"E); elevation (175 ft/53 m), runway dimensions, PCN (58/F/C/W/T) and ILS RWY 25 frequencies in the draft were all confirmed correct against the current AAI aerodrome chart (AMDT 05/2026).