The first international flight from the Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) is expected to take off sometime in November-December this year, despite the airport's inauguration on October 8 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after several false starts.
This is because after the inauguration, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) will take 45-60 days to deploy security arrangements here. This includes installing and testing security equipment, screening machines, metal detectors, and security protocol.
A Loksatta report also points out that in a few years, the airport would be connected to Mumbai via road (Atal Setu, or Mumbai's trans harbour link), water (proposed water taxi connection), metro (proposed Metro Line 8, also called the Gold Line), and rail (proposed Mumbai-Hyderabad bullet train project).
Spanning an area of 1,160 hectares (2866.4 acres), Mumbai Metropolitan Region's second airport is expected to open in five phases.
The first phase will begin with one runway and a terminal building to facilitate 20 million passengers annually. By the fifth phase, it will feature four terminals and two runways, handling a combined capacity (with Mumbai's other airport) of 155 million passsengers per year.
The airport project—jointly owned by Adani Airport Holdings (74 per cent) and CIDCO (26 per cent)—is also expected to generate 2 lakh jobs across various sectors, a Moneycontrol report said.
However, netizens have also highlighted concerns with the airport's inauguration being rushed.
"Just like many other projects, forced inauguration leading to shoddy work and waste of taxpayers money," a Redditor wrote.
"Not saying the airport is bad but there’s not enough planning for someone staying in northern suburbs and beyond," another Redditor pointed out.
