The Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) successfully commenced operations on Thursday, with an IndiGo Airbus A320 from Bengaluru making the first landing on the tarmac at 8 am. The flight departed for Hyderabad at 8.40 am.
With the new airport, Mumbai joined the ranks of global aviation hubs like London, New York, Moscow, Tokyo, and Shanghai, each having multiple airports to meet rising demand, Navi Mumbai Airport said.
On December 25, the airport handled a total of 15 departure flights to various destinations spanning the country, fueling its first phase of commercial flight operations.
From December 26 onwards, the airport will be operating around 25 scheduled departure flights on a daily basis which will further shoot up to 40 departures per day at the end of January 2026, with IndiGo, Akasa Air, and Air India Express being the predominant airlines.
The airport has aimed to outperform its former announcement in May where it said that it will be beginning operations with 18 daily departure flights to 15 destinations.
Inaugural arrival and departure at NMIA
The first aircraft to touch down NMIA, IndiGo’s 6E460 from Bengaluru, which arrived at 8 am, was honoured with a ceremonial water cannon salute.
The first departure flight from NMIA took off at 8.40 am for Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi international airport.
Airlines operating from NMIA
IndiGo on its official X (formerly Twitter) will connect Navi Mumbai to key Indian cities including New Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Lucknow, Nagpur, Mangalore, Kochi, Goa and so on.
According to Akasa Air’s official X handle, the airline is operating a total of 35 daily flights from Navi Mumbai and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.
Akasa will also begin operations with daily flights from NMIA to Delhi and North Goa followed by Kochi. Next up, Ahmedabad will be connected by a weekly flight and further on, it plans to stretch operations from Navi Mumbai up to 300 domestic and 50 international flights every week, reported Live Mint.
Air India Express announced commencement of flights that will directly connect Navi Mumbai with Bangalore and New Delhi, from the first day of operations to and from NMIA.
“More cities. More access. More ways to stay connected,” Air India Express wrote on its official X handle.