MUMBAI: The Navi Mumbai airport missed its much-touted March-end deadline, but not by much as the city’s second commercial flights airport is expected to be inaugurated on April 17. Access to the public will begin four weeks later, in the second half of May, when airlines commence domestic flights, along with cargo operations. By the end of July, international flights will start, said Arun Bansal, CEO, Adani Airport Holdings Ltd on Sunday.
Given that the Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) is a greenfield airport – built on undeveloped land – and built in 2024-25, it will have “all the modern amenities from day one like biometrics, connectivity between terminals,” said Bansal.
On Sunday, around 12.30pm, an IndiGo A320 aircraft took off from Mumbai airport and spent an hour circling over Karjat, Pen, carrying out technical assessment and missed approach manoeuvres as part of the “validation flight” process.
At 1.32pm, the aircraft did a touchdown on runway 08-26, becoming the first airline jet to land at NMIA. The data collected from the validation flight will be submitted to the aviation regulator for grant of the mandatory aerodrome licence.
On Oct 11, an Indian Air Force C-295, a large multi-role tactical airlifter, carried out an inaugural landing on the NMIA runway.
The phase-1 terminal building has a capacity of 20 million passengers per annum (ppa). To put that in perspective, last fiscal, airports like Chennai and Kolkata handled about 20 million ppa. Mumbai airport handled 52.8 million ppa, while Delhi, the busiest airport in the country, handled 73.6 million ppa. “Navi Mumbai airport will start with 10-12 million ppa, with 8-9 million domestic and about 2-3 million international passengers,” said Bansal. By mid-2026, it will reach 20 million capacity. “NMIA’s terminal 2 will have 30 million ppa capacity and will go live by the end of 2028,” Bansal said.
When commissioned, the much-awaited NMIA will share the burden of the congested Mumbai airport, which is served by a single runway. “About 15 million passengers from the Mumbai region are travelling to nearby states or other airports,” Bansal said. “Airlines are very keen to move to Navi Mumbai to capture that additional passenger growth from Mumbai,” he said, adding that all domestic airlines are big enough, and so they won’t move their entire operations to NMIA.
“But certain international airlines with only a few flights per day might decide to have all their operations either out of Mumbai or Navi Mumbai,” he added.
Speaking about connectivity, Bansal said, “We’re very hopeful that the last-mile connectivity will continue to improve. There is a proposal for a new Metro line from Navi Mumbai to the existing Mumbai airport. A lot of highway connectivity has happened, and last mile connectivity will also be ready in time for commercial operations,” he said.