By Khajuraho Airport, ranked India’s best in a new survey, has run no commercial flights for two months because of ongoing runway work.
The 2026 National Service and Customer Satisfaction Index survey by the Airports Authority of India ranked the airport first for passenger facilities, cleanliness, security and service quality, independent of flight numbers.
Commercial flights have been suspended through July and August for runway and other technical work, with services expected to resume around October.
Before flights were halted, Khajuraho Airport operated just two scheduled routes, to Delhi and Varanasi.
Airport director Santosh Singh said the ranking “reflected the hard work of the entire airport staff and the trust of passengers,” adding that the survey took place while flights were still running.
Singh said flight operations would resume once the runway work was finished.
Bhopal’s Raja Bhoj Airport took third place nationally in the survey, and Khajuraho had also topped the AAI’s customer satisfaction survey in December 2025.
Residents in Khajuraho have raised questions over how the airport can top the rankings while having no flights at all this July and August.
The airport’s runway measures 2,286 metres by 45 metres, while its terminal building, opened in January 2016, was built at a cost of about Rs 90 crore.
The airport mainly serves visitors bound for the Khajuraho Group of Monuments, a UNESCO World Heritage Site famed for its medieval temple carvings, a short drive from the terminal.
Khajuraho is best known internationally for its UNESCO World Heritage-listed group of temples, and the airport primarily serves tourists visiting the site as well as pilgrims and business travellers to the region.
The Airports Authority of India conducts its National Service and Customer Satisfaction Index survey periodically to benchmark airports on the quality of the passenger experience they offer, independent of how much traffic they handle.
(Image: Photo by Z thomas, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
