MUMBAI: The Indian Air Force (IAF) operated the first inaugural flight to the Navi Mumbai airport, with an Airbus C-295 aircraft touching down on the brand new runway 26 at 12.15 pm on Friday. Minutes later, a Sukhoi SU-30 performed a low flypast, prompting a round of applause from the gathered crowd.
The commercial operations of Navi Mumbai airport, the second airport to serve the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, are expected to begin by the end of March next year.The deadline was announced by former civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia earlier this year.
In Phase 1, the airport will have a single runway and a terminal building, with a design inspired by a lotus, capable of handling 2 crore passengers per annum. The 2 lakh square metre T1 is being designed as per LEED Gold standards (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a green building certification programme used worldwide).
Union civil aviation minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu and Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde were present for the event.
During his visit to the Navi Mumbai airport site, Scindia stated that the govt has planned a “Gati Shakti model with multi-modal connectivity.” The airport will have road, rail, and metro connectivity, with future plans for water connectivity as well.
Currently, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, with its single runway operations and two passenger terminals, is the only air transport option for people from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).
When both airports are operational, the MMR region would be served by about 1,500 flights a day, according to a source. Navi Mumbai airport will eventually have a set of parallel runways, making it the first such airport in the MMR region. The airports that serve Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, and other major airports in the world are served by parallel runways.
The Mumbai airport was India’s busiest airport until 2011 when infrastructure constraints stifled its growth and Delhi overtook it. Between 2015 and 2018, while airports across India witnessed double-digit growth in domestic passenger traffic for 48 consecutive months, Mumbai was held back due to infrastructure constraints.
