IndiGo and Air India will move some of their international operations to Navi Mumbai International Airport as two of India's biggest airlines expand their presence at the new aviation facility serving the country's financial capital. IndiGo announced the move in a joint statement with airport operator Adani Airport Holdings Ltd. on Sunday, saying it will "progressively transfer" 12 daily international departures from Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport to the newly opened facility starting February 2027.
The shift will include all existing IndiGo services from Mumbai to Bahrain, Riyadh, Dammam, Jeddah, Madinah, Kuwait, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah, Muscat, Dhaka and Jakarta, as well as a planned daily service to Kathmandu. Air India Group will gradually shift some flights to the Middle East from January, with the transition expected to be completed by the 2027 summer schedule. Some services are subject to regulatory approvals. Its subsidiary Air India Express will begin four daily domestic flights from December 2026.
The shift comes as Mumbai International Airport prepares to redevelop its aging Terminal 1, requiring traffic to be redistributed between Mumbai's two airports. Airlines had earlier resisted efforts to move flights from Mumbai's CSMIA to the Navi Mumbai airport, but with the Adani Group controlling both airports, the reallocation underscores its influence over how air traffic is distributed across India's financial capital.
The joint release said the phased transition is intended to support a transparent, equitable and proportionate rebalancing of capacity across Mumbai's dual airport system, taking into account each airline's presence at CSMIA. Adani Airport, controlled by billionaire Gautam Adani, is India's largest private-sector airport operator, managing eight airports across seven cities and planning an $11 billion investment to bid for a dozen more terminals by 2030.
Source: Bloomberg Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing