Show us the safety audit: Airlines push back on Adani plan to move 265 Mumbai flights to NMIA

Airlines at Mumbai airport have asked its operator to hand over the structural safety audits on Terminal 1 before they agree to shift 265 weekly international departures to Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) from October 25.

In a letter to Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) on Friday, the Airline Operators Committee (AOC) sought six additions to the agenda of a stakeholder meeting on October 13: the consultant reports MIAL has cited on T1’s safety, a presentation on the redevelopment plan, the status of T2’s expansion, monthly capacity data for both terminals in 2026, the alternatives MIAL considered, and a review of slot-allocation compliance if capacity is cut.

Both airports are run by the Adani group, NMIA directly and Mumbai through MIAL. The letter follows the civil aviation ministry’s decision to defer MIAL’s plan to cut 265 of T2’s 770 weekly international departures, across 46 airlines, to make room for domestic flights displaced by T1’s partial rebuilding.

MIAL had planned to begin demolishing and rebuilding the northern section of Terminal 1B in January 2027. Ahead of the work, it wrote to airlines asking them to either move certain flights to NMIA, about 50 km away, or temporarily discontinue them from October 25. MIAL has maintained that the arrangement is necessary and that timings can be restored once T1’s redevelopment adds capacity.

At Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA), (Photo by Narendra Caskar)

The airlines back the redevelopment. What they question is the need to send a third of the airport’s international departures to Navi Mumbai. They have asked MIAL to show the independent consultants’ reports it has cited for its concerns over T1’s structural safety, and to present the redevelopment plan in detail.

They have also asked what became of T2’s expansion, which was expected to add about five million passengers a year to its capacity. The AOC wants MIAL to explain the expansion’s current status, scope and timeline.

The committee has sought month-by-month figures for 2026 on actual capacity use at both terminals against their declared capacity. The airlines believe the data would show whether the cut in international departures is justified, and whether the existing infrastructure can be used more efficiently during the rebuilding.

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At Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA), (Photo by Narendra Caskar)

Another demand is that MIAL explain the alternatives it weighed in its demand-and-capacity assessment, including a temporary passenger-processing facility to handle the domestic traffic that would move to T2 during T1’s redevelopment.

The AOC has also asked for a formal review of compliance with the ministry’s slot-allocation guidelines if airport capacity is reduced.

The ministry’s intervention has put the October 25 transition on hold and asked MIAL to work with airlines on a revised plan. Monday’s meeting is expected to take up the safety assessments, the capacity constraints and the rationale for moving flights.