Mumbai: Mumbai airport will become about a quarter smaller next winter and will stay smaller than it is today for three years, until Dec 2030 or even longer. Its two terminals together handled 55 million passengers last fiscal, but by Oct 2027 the airport will be able to handle only 40 million—a drop in capacity of 27%—even as demand for air travel will keep rising. From then on, Mumbai airport will operate out of its congested Terminal 2 alone, which can handle about 40 million passengers a year and is expected to grow only a little, to 45 million, by March 2029.
Because its Terminal 1 (T1), which handles 15 million passengers a year, or about 41,000 a day, will shut down completely next winter for redevelopment, the shrinking will happen. That means more than one in four of the passengers who use Mumbai airport today will have to go to Navi Mumbai airport from next winter.
If these projects, especially T1 redevelopment, aren’t completed within these deadlines, MMR will face a severe capacity crunch from winter 2027 onwards, said airline sources.
Under the current plans, AAHL will demolish one-third of T1 in phase-1 starting April next year, displacing 5 million domestic passengers per annum. AAHL has planned to accommodate these displaced passengers at T2; hence its decision to cut down international flights at T2 by one-third from summer 2027, which will move 5 million international passengers out of T2 largely to Navi Mumbai airport. Following political outcry over concerns of Mumbai airport’s diminishing status, AAHL clarified that 5 million international passengers moving out of T2 meant 91% of Mumbai passengers will be unaffected by T1 redevelopment. But what AAHL did not say was that eventually the entire T1 will be demolished by March 2028. It will displace a total of 15 million domestic passengers per year or affect 27% of Mumbai airport’s current passengers. Most of them would have to go to Navi Mumbai airport, whose terminal 1 can handle 20 mppa; it currently handles an estimated 6 mppa.
“Navi Mumbai terminal 2 will also be ready in 2030 with additional capacity of 30 million passengers and further addition of 20 million capacity by 2031,” the AAHL spokesperson added. But NMIA’s T1 is expected to reach saturation within a year. You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Mumbai | Silver Rate in Mumbai | Bank Holidays in Mumbai | Public Holidays in Mumbai | Mumbai AQI | Weather in Mumbai | Petrol Price in Mumbai | Diesel Price in Mumbai | CNG Price in Mumbai | LPG Price in Mumbai