Mumbai: Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has opposed the plan to move flights on 14 international routes out of Mumbai to Navi Mumbai airport from next summer. No flights will be shifted out of Mumbai, he said.
He has written to the civil aviation minister with an alternative plan for the redevelopment of Terminal 1. "I have written to them to first develop Terminal 1B, shift 1A to 1B and then take down the existing 1A terminal," Fadnavis said. The idea is to rebuild in phases and keep existing facilities running instead of shutting the whole terminal before its replacement is ready.
Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) told airlines last month that it would cut international operations at Terminal 2 by a third from the Summer 2027 schedule beginning end-March. That space is needed for 5 million passengers per annum of domestic traffic displaced by the first phase of T1 demolition.
Last week, Adani Airport Holdings Ltd informed the ministry it planned to shift flights connecting Mumbai with 14 international destinations to Navi Mumbai from next summer. The list covers Bahrain, Dammam, Dhaka, Doha, Fujairah, Jakarta, Jeddah, Kathmandu, Kuwait City, Madinah, Muscat, Ras Al Khaimah, Riyadh and Sharjah.
Airlines, particularly foreign carriers, have resisted. The International Air Transport Association had urged the ministry to adopt a phased redevelopment strategy, with sections of T1 demolished and rebuilt sequentially, to avoid a wholesale loss of capacity.
The entire 15-mppa T1 is scheduled to be demolished by March 2028, with reconstruction to begin only after that. The new terminal is expected by December 2030. Airline sources said shutting T1 entirely would leave Mumbai airport with a substantial capacity deficit for three years or more, since T1A, T1B and T1C were never built to work as independent full-scale terminals.
For a passenger flying out of Mumbai next summer, the question is simple: does the boarding pass say Mumbai or Navi Mumbai? As of now, the state's position is Mumbai.