After years of delays, the Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) is set to open soon, marking a new chapter for India’s busiest aviation hub. Spread over 1,100 hectares and located 40km from central Mumbai, the airport will initially ease pressure on the city’s overburdened Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, which has maxed out its 55 million annual passenger capacity.
Once fully operational with four terminals and two parallel runways, NMIA will handle up to 90 million passengers annually, making Mumbai the first major Indian city with two airports.
Operators say the airport will be India’s first fully digital hub, designed to reduce turnaround times with advanced check-in, security, baggage, and boarding systems. Partnerships with IndiGo, Akasa Air, and Air India are already in place, with new routes expected to launch as soon as it opens.
But despite its scale and ambition, the project faces significant hurdles. Located on the city’s outskirts, it can take up to three hours to reach NMIA from some suburbs. A direct metro link is still years away, leaving interim solutions like electric shuttle buses. Experts warn that this could deter passengers, particularly for connecting flights.
Policy and regulatory barriers also stand in the way of NMIA’s global hub ambitions. Unlike Singapore or Dubai, India requires repeated security checks when transferring between domestic and international flights, slowing passenger movement. Security practices like physical frisking also make throughput slower compared to airports that use body scanners.
Even so, aviation analysts say NMIA is vital for India’s fast-growing aviation sector, which has seen double-digit growth and massive aircraft orders. The airport’s catchment area will extend beyond Mumbai to cities like Pune, strengthening India’s long-term aviation infrastructure.
“Cities like New York, London, Dubai, and Tokyo all operate with multiple airports. Mumbai will now join that club,” says Ajay Awtaney, editor of LiveFromALounge.
For now, NMIA’s greatest achievement may be solving Mumbai’s immediate air traffic congestion problem — while laying the groundwork for India’s bigger ambitions to rival global hubs like Singapore and Dubai.
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