Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) was built on empty land in just 31 months and has quickly become a major aviation hub. Pradeep Panicker, CEO of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL), spoke at Wings India 2026 about the airport’s growth and challenges. He said, “There was nothing on the land there. We just had to start levelling the land and start building it.” The greenfield project was done relatively quickly and smoothly. However, the later expansion – called brownfield expansion – was harder. It was done on the same site while the airport was fully working. This modular expansion helped improve past mistakes but had to manage airport operations at the same time. Technology was a big challenge. "The technology in place in 2008 was no longer adequate by 2024 or 2025. As a result, older systems often had to be removed and replaced with newer ones," said Panicker. When RGIA started, it handled around 50 to 55 lakh passengers annually, expecting to grow to 1.2 crore. Instead, passenger numbers grew faster and unpredictably. From 2008 to 2014, the number rose to 1 crore. From 2014 to 2019, it sharply increased to 2 crore – a fast growth Panicker called "unprecedented." In 2024-25, RGIA served 2.9 crore passengers, with 2.4 crore domestic and 50 lakh international travelers, showing its rapid rise as a key airport in India.