That will ramp up to 90 million by 2032 if there’s enough demand, according to Arun Bansal, the chief executive officer of Adani Airport.
About 22 miles southeast of Mumbai’s badly congested airport that opened 82 years back, workers in hard hats are high up on scaffolds building an alternative. Others are flattening a nearby hill to finish the first of two runways so that India’s financial capital can finally have a second airport.
In many ways, the Adani Group-helmed $2.1 billion project in the satellite city of Navi Mumbai is a microcosm of the massive infrastructure overhaul underway in India as its Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to outrun China.
For Gautam Adani, it’s a test of whether he can put India on the global aviation map. The airport, with a lotus shaped design mimicking India’s national flower as well as the election symbol for Modi’s party, should start operations in March next year with capacity for 20 million passengers a year. That will ramp up to 90 million by 2032 if there’s enough demand, according to Arun Bansal, the chief executive officer of Adani Airport Holdings Ltd., India’s largest private sector airport operator that also runs the existing Mumbai airport.
Navi Mumbai airport will be a “perfect” candidate to become an international transit hub on par with some of the world’s busiest aerodromes like Dubai, London, Frankfurt and Singapore, Bansal said in an interview. “Geographically, India is in a very advantageous situation,” he said. “There’s hardly any country where you can’t fly within 12 hours.”
A wave of plane deals and airport buildouts can aid that ambition. Air India Ltd., IndiGo and upstart Akasa have ordered more than 1,100 aircraft, combined. The world’s most-populous nation is also plowing $12 billion into building more than 72 new airports by 2025. Navi Mumbai airport is one of two landmark infrastructure projects in the city that will test the mettle of Adani, the mining-to-media conglomerate that survived a withering short-seller attack last year.
The other is the redevelopment of the Dharavi slum in the heart of Mumbai, which served as a backdrop for acclaimed movie, Slumdog Millionaire. It’s one of the world’s largest and densest slum clusters where families of six often live in 100-square tenements and 80 may share a toilet. Global Logistics Projects like these are crucial to Modi’s vision of India becoming a developed nation by 2047.
But it’s not going to be easy. Similar to how Adani is trying to get a larger slice of the global logistics market— the group started a first-of-its-kind transhipment port in October at India’s southernmost tip to beckon world’s biggest container ships — Navi Mumbai airport is attempting a redux of that in air passenger traffic.
However, it’s up against stiff competition from the likes of Singapore’s Changi Airport or London’s Heathrow, which ferried almost 59 million and 79 million passengers last year respectively. What’s more, London has six major airports, while New York City has three, signalling how far Mumbai has to go to catch up.
The new facility will also need to have ample flights slotted in and ensure people and checked-in bags move fast enough in case of short layovers, according to Mabel Kwan, managing director at Alton Aviation Consultancy. There have to be on-ground amenities for fliers with longer layovers, too. Emirates, Qatar Airways QCSC and Singapore Airlines Ltd., which all have strong presence in India, will likely request slots at Navi Mumbai airport, she said.
Adani Airport is in discussions with the “majority” of international airlines on how to expedite passenger flow, Bansal said, adding he expects 30% of the facility’s traffic to come from international flights and 70% from domestic. He didn’t specify if any airlines have committed to flying from the new facility.