Indias prime minister opens a new Mumbai airport built by Adani Group for $2.2 billion

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated a new worldwide airport in the financial capital Mumbai, marking a step ahead in enlargement of the nation’s fast-growing aviation community.

Built by business conglomerate Adani Group at an estimated price of $2.2 billion, the first part of Navi Mumbai International Airport is anticipated to begin operations in December as a key passenger and cargo hub in Asia. It will also help ease congestion at town’s present Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, one of the nation’s busiest. Mumbai is the only metropolitan metropolis in India to have a second worldwide airport.

The latest project underscores India’s broader push to modernize infrastructure and strengthen air connectivity as its economic system grows and air travels surge. Over the past decade, the federal government has launched and upgraded dozens of airports to hyperlink smaller cities and improve cargo motion, aiming to make air journey a key driver of financial growth. The quantity of airport in the nation has elevated to 160 from 74 in 2014, official data exhibits.

“It’s a reflection of a nation that is growing,” Modi said in a speech.

India is the world’s third-largest air transport market in phrases of departing passenger site visitors, behind the U.S. and China, according to a report by the International Air Transport Association in June. Approximately 174 million passengers traveled from and within India by air in 2024, accounting for around 4.2% of the world complete.

The Navi Mumbai airport can have a capability of up to 20 million passengers yearly and up to 90 million over the next few years when all the 4 deliberate terminals are operational, the Adani Group said in a assertion.

It would be the first airport in India deliberate to be related by water taxis in addition to high velocity rail, underground metro trains, roads and freeway networks.