After years of anticipation, the Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) is finally set to commence commercial operations, marking a pivotal moment for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region's aviation capacity. The airport, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 08, 2025, will welcome its first passengers on December 25, 2025.
This launch is a significant development for Mumbai, which ceded its top position in air traffic to Delhi back in 2008-09. The new airport is poised to provide the much-needed expansion that was hampered by land constraints at the existing Mumbai airport, which prevented the addition of a parallel runway.
A Phased and Muted Beginning
Contrary to the grand announcements made earlier by airlines, the operational start of NMIA is more measured. In its first month, the airport will function for 12 hours daily, from 0800 hours to 2000 hours, handling a maximum of 10 flight movements per hour.
The initial schedule will feature 23 scheduled daily departures, which is set to increase to 34 from February 2026. While IndiGo, Akasa Air, and Air India Express are all commencing operations from day one, their scale is a shadow of their original ambitious plans.
Currently, the airport is in its final stages of preparation, conducting comprehensive Operational Readiness and Airport Transfer (ORAT) trials. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) was formally inducted for security operations on October 29, 2025.
Airline Operations: Who Flies Where and When?
The race for the first flight has been won by IndiGo. The inaugural flight to land at NMIA will be IndiGo flight 6E460 from Bengaluru, touching down at 0800 am. The first departure will be IndiGo flight 6E882 to Hyderabad at 0840 hours.
IndiGo's initial network from NMIA will connect to Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, North Goa (Mopa), Jaipur, Nagpur, Cochin, and Mangalore, offering 67 weekly frequencies. This is a far cry from its May 2025 announcement of 18 daily departures to 15 destinations. The airline will add flights to Chennai and Coimbatore from December 29 and to Vadodara from December 30.
Akasa Air will begin with daily flights to Delhi and Goa (Mopa), followed by services to Kochi and a single weekly flight to Ahmedabad towards the end of December. The airline has a progressive strategy, aiming to ramp up to 300 domestic and 50 international weekly departures from NMIA. This is a shift from its June 2025 plan of starting with 100+ weekly domestic departures.
Air India Express is starting with daily flights to Bengaluru and five-times-a-week services to Delhi. This will be scaled up to 12x weekly to Delhi and double daily to Bengaluru in January. The airline, which was the last to announce NMIA operations, had initially planned for 20 daily departures to 15 cities.
Interestingly, all the initial destinations from NMIA are private airports or Joint Ventures, with none operated by the state-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI). Airlines face challenges in aligning capacity with the airport's delayed opening, which was initially expected in 2024, due to industry-wide supply chain crunches.
The Road Ahead for NMIA
The airport is expected to transition to 24/7 operations from February 2026. There is, however, no official word on the commencement of international flights. While the airside operations are ready, the terminal needs thorough testing for Customs and Immigration services.
With the peak travel season for this quarter winding down, the major growth for Mumbai's aviation sector is anticipated in Summer 2026. By then, NMIA will be fully operational round-the-clock, providing airlines with the visibility needed to plan and induct capacity effectively, finally unlocking the region's constrained aviation potential.
