On Christmas Day, just four days ago, Navi Mumbai International Airport formally opened and commenced passenger & cargo operations.
This has been a culmination of nearly 30 years worth of work to get to this point, with that time now arrived and in effect.
Whilst it has opened, there are still big plans for the airport’s overall development, which will see things progress well into the 2030s.
For most passengers, it was just another flight.
For the city, it was the culmination of a long, tangled, and often dramatic saga involving politics, engineering, environmental battles, and the dreams of a region desperate for breathing room.
This is the story of how India built one of its most ambitious airports — and why it took so long.
A City Outgrowing Its Wings
By the late 1990s, Mumbai’s aviation future looked bleak.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, hemmed in by dense urban sprawl, was bursting at the seams.
Delays were routine. Expansion was impossible. The city needed a second airport — not someday, but soon.
In 1997, CIDCO, the planning authority for Navi Mumbai, stepped forward with a bold proposal: a new airport carved out of the marshlands near Panvel.
At first, it was a modest idea — a single runway, a regional facility.
But as Mumbai’s air traffic soared, the vision expanded. Two parallel runways. A major international hub.
A project that could redefine the region.
The central government agreed.
In 2007, the Union Cabinet gave its approval. On paper, the path ahead looked clear. In reality, it was anything but.
Navi Mumbai Had Land That Fought Back
The chosen site was a patchwork of villages, wetlands, mangroves, and the meandering Ulwe River.
It was environmentally sensitive, geographically uneven, and home to thousands of people who had no intention of leaving quietly.
Environmental clearances became the first major hurdle.
The airport would require diverting a river, flattening a hill, and reclaiming marshland — a civil engineering challenge of rare scale.
Studies were commissioned. Reports were revised. Meetings stretched into years.
Meanwhile, the human story unfolded in the villages of Ulwe, Targhar, and others. 2,786 families were asked to give up their homes.
Compensation packages were negotiated, renegotiated, protested, and protested again.
Some residents accepted the terms. Others blocked roads, halted surveys, and demanded more.
By the mid‑2010s, the airport existed mostly as a set of drawings and a growing sense of frustration.
A Project Searching for a Builder
In 2014, CIDCO opened the bidding process to private developers.
The world’s biggest airport operators expressed interest.
But as deadlines slipped and requirements shifted, bidders dropped out one by one.
Finally, in 2017, Mumbai International Airport Limited — then led by the GVK Group — won the contract.
It was a turning point, but not yet a breakthrough. Land acquisition issues continued to stall progress.
Protests flared again in late 2017.
Even after the ceremonial groundbreaking in February 2018, the site remained largely untouched.
But behind the scenes, the gears were finally beginning to turn.
Re‑Shaping the Earth
Before a single terminal column could rise, the land itself had to be remade.
The Ulwe River was diverted into the Moha Creek — a delicate operation completed in 2019.
Ulwe Hill was shaved down.
Marshland was filled. The entire site was raised by 5.5 meters to protect it from flooding.
Power lines were rerouted. Roads were redesigned.
This was not construction. It was transformation.
And then, in 2021, the project changed hands again.
The Adani Era and the Race to 2025
When the Adani Group acquired Mumbai International Airport Limited, it also inherited the Navi Mumbai project.
The new leadership moved quickly, forming Navi Mumbai International Airport Limited (NMIAL) and accelerating construction.
By 2022, all remaining land had been handed over. By 2023, more than half of Phase 1 was complete.
The terminal — designed by Zaha Hadid Architects with its striking lotus‑inspired form — began to take shape.
Runways were paved. Taxiways were laid.
The airport that had lived in planning documents for decades was finally becoming real.
A Long‑Awaited Takeoff at Navi Mumbai International Airport
On 8 October 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the airport’s first phase.
The moment was symbolic — a ribbon cut on a project that had survived political shifts, environmental scrutiny, and countless delays.
But the true milestone came on 25 December 2025, when the first commercial flight — an IndiGo service from Bengaluru — touched down at 8:00 am.
Forty minutes later, the same aircraft departed for Hyderabad, marking the official start of operations.
| Airlines | Destinations |
|---|---|
| Air India Express | Bengaluru, Delhi |
| Akasa Air | Ahmedabad (begins 31 December 2025), Delhi, Goa–Mopa, Kochi |
| IndiGo | Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Goa–Mopa, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Nagpur, Vadodara |
| Star Air | Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Goa–Mopa, Nanded |
For the first time in its history, Mumbai had two functioning airports.
Phase 1 gives the airport capacity for 20 million passengers a year.
But this is only the beginning.
Over the next decade, NMIA is expected to grow into a 90‑million‑passenger mega‑hub with a second runway, three terminals, a cargo complex, a general aviation zone, and multimodal connectivity.
The Airport That Navi Mumbai Needed — and Fought For
The story of Navi Mumbai International Airport is not a simple tale of construction.
It is a story of negotiation, resistance, compromise, and persistence.
It is a reminder that infrastructure is not just steel and concrete — it is people, politics, and the stubbornness of geography.
Today, it stands as a testament to what can be achieved when a city refuses to stop growing.
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