New Delhi, Sept 23 : The Airports Authority of India (AAI) that participated in the 20th World Route Development Forum held at Chicago from 20th to 23rd September has identified 29 metro and non-metro airports for domestic and global airlines to start operations from there.

The airports identified were Amritsar, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Lucknow, Leh, Srinagar, Varanasi (Banaras), Bhubaneswar, Gaya, Kolkata, Port Blair, Ranchi, Raipur, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Aurangabad, Bhopal, Indore, Goa, Pune, Surat, Chennai, Coimbatore, Calicut, Madurai, Mangalore, Trivandrum, Trichy and Visakhapatnam.

AAI conducted one-to-one meetings, during the conference, with the participating airlines and had a dedicated exhibition stand also.

The airport-specific brochures brought out by AAI on the occasion included salient features of the airports, catchment areas they belong to, aerodrome reference code, tourist attractions and aviation and tourism potential.

The authority has been participating in the various World Route events for the last six years.

It maintains 125 airports comprising of 21 international airports, 3 civil enclaves and 3 joint venture, 78 domestic airports, 7 customs airports, 4 civil enclaves and 19 other civil enclaves.

The Air Navigation Services ( ANS) is also provided by the authority at all the civil airports in the country. (ANI)