November 1924: A KLM flight landed at the Calcutta airport at night assisted by kerosene-powered gooseneck lights fixed along the edges of the runway.

December 2024: Planes land at the airport at night with the help of electric lights fixed along the runway edges. When visibility is very low, the airport has the Category III B Instrument Landing System to help aircraft land.

1924: Barely seven flights operated annually, according to the airport authorities.

2024: More than 400 aircraft operate out of the airport daily.

The city airport will start celebrating 100 years of its operations on December 21 and the logo for the three-month programme was launched on Friday.

“The (Calcutta) airport has served through various historical periods, representing the pre-Independence struggle, the growth of the country post-Independence, and the LPG reforms. Today, under the leadership of our Prime Minister, the airport sector has been transformed. Special focus has been put on Kolkata Airport, with significant upgrades in capacity, additional services, and world-class infrastructure over the last five years,” Union civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said after unveiling the logo on Friday.

Officials said a US circumnavigation aircraft had landed at the Calcutta airport on April 4, 1924. Later that year, a flight from Paris to Tokyo landed at the airport.

“On November 13, 1924, KLM operated its first intercontinental test flight from Amsterdam to Batavia (now Jakarta) in Indonesia with a single-engine Fokker F-VII aircraft. This demonstrated that Europe and Asia could be safely connected by air,” said an airport official.

“The flight landed at the Calcutta airport at night. In those days, there were no runway edge lights. Gooseneck lights were placed to facilitate the landing,” said the official.

“A picture exhibition will be unveiled on December 21. It will be open to passengers, too,” said airport director Pravat Ranjan Beuria.