Mumbai: The Rs 17,000-cr Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) of Adani Airport Holdings Ltd will be inaugurated on June 1 by prime minister Narendra Modi, sources in the state intelligence told The Free Press Journal on Monday. However, sources at the airport said that even after the inauguration will be some time before flight operations kick off.
NMIA witnessed the inaugural landing of an Indian Air Force C-295 aircraft in October, 2024 and the first commercial flight validation test was conducted in December by an IndiGo’s A320 aircraft, which landed on Runway 08/26 in the presence of senior officials from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Airports Authority of India (AAI), Customs, Immigration, CISF, CIDCO etc.
After the success of commercial flight validation test, group CEO of Adani Airports Holding Ltd Arun Bansal had claimed that the airport would be inaugurated on April 17 and the operations would commence in May. However, Adani Group’s chairman Gautam Adani said later in March that the airport would be inaugurated in June 2025. While Adani has 74 % stake the rest is held by CIDCO.
Speaking at the Routes Asia 2025 summit in March the airport’s chief operating officer Prabhat Mahapatra had also confirmed that the airport is expected to be inaugurated in June and commence commercial operations in late July or early August. However, sources related to NMIA have said that the commencement of operations will take longer than expectations as it is still left with a lot of pending work in the first phase, including the first passenger terminal.
NMIA has confirmed that the airside work related to runways, including runways, taxiways and aprons, has been completed while the process to secure the aerodrome license from DGCA and security clearance from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) is in progress. Moreover, operational readiness and airport transfer (ORAT) trials, to test the functionality of systems and procedures under real-life scenarios, have also begun.
The first phase of NMIA, a greenfield airport, will include a passenger terminal, a Code-F compliant runway with double parallel taxiways and is expected to handle 20 million passengers and 0.8 million tonnes of cargo annually. After the work of all the phases is completed, the airport is said to have a capacity to handle 90 million passengers and 3.2 million tonnes of cargo annually.
The new airport will boast state-of-the-art amenities, which is believed to be highly attractive to airlines and passengers alike. "We have incorporated modern facilities to enhance the passenger experience and meet their diverse requirements. Capacity will not be a problem for us," Bansal had said during the commercial flight validation.
