Doha: “Navi Mumbai International Airport’s ( NMIA ) opening will signal the start of restoring equilibrium for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) in Indian aviation — a place that Mumbai had slowly ceded to Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad over the last decade.” Jeet Adani, 27, Director ( Airports ) of the Adani Group , who oversaw the construction of MMR’s long-awaited hub, spoke exclusively to TOI a day before NMIA’s inauguration by PM Modi. He promises that, having risen from “swamps and mudflats, the lotus-inspired aviation hub will surpass the best airports of Asia, Europe and America in user experience and efficiency for stakeholders.”
NMIA is opening with a capacity to handle two crore passengers annually (CPA). It is expected to reach its saturation capacity of nine CPA in about a decade, with two runways and three terminals connected by an automated people mover — built with an investment of over Rs 1 lakh crore.
“For Mumbai, NMIA’s inauguration is more than just the opening of a terminal and a runway. It is the lifting of a long-standing jinx. Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) has been operating at peak capacity of about 5.5 crore passengers annually, but the demand of this region — the country’s aviation nerve centre — was much more & continues to rise. At Mumbai airport, congestion and lack of space had become the norm. By the late 1990s it had become clear that a second airport would be required, and the Navi Mumbai site was selected back then,” Jeet Adani, the younger son of group patriarch Gautam Adani , said.
But it took close to three decades for the plan to become a reality, owing to a series of unending roadblocks. Instead of being seen as the site of an upcoming airport, for many years the land — 2,800 hectares of it — remained embroiled in court cases. The delay meant Mumbaikars suffered from lack of aerial connectivity and the city lost its busiest aviation hub slot in 2008.
“The challenges were there in 2021, when we took over the responsibility of constructing NMIA. But instead of seeing them as challenges, Gautam Adani saw them as an opportunity. On his first visit to the site, he decided NMIA would open not with a capacity of 1 CPA but double of that, simply because of the demand of the region. Speed was paramount. Financial closure, elusive for over a decade, was achieved within months. Long-stalled rehabilitation was handled with sensitivity and speed, moving families into new housing. Creeks were diverted, power lines shifted and hills flattened. The impossible suddenly seemed inevitable,” said Jeet Adani, while giving “full credit” to PM Modi for NMIA finally becoming a reality.
“The sheer physicality of the work and its scale of engineering are mind-boggling. To stabilise the marshy land, raise the platform and prepare for heavy pavements, 15 crore tons of earth had to be moved. That is more than 30 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza, as heavy as the entire soil mass of Manhattan Island, or equal to shifting 300 Burj Khalifas or 15,000 Eiffel Towers,” he said.
Controlled blasting and cutting removed an estimated 3.5 crore cubic metres of rock from Ulwe Hill. Two rivers, Ulwe and Gadhi, were rerouted along the boundary to reduce flooding risk and make the site workable. “Few airports anywhere in the world have ever demanded such feats of preparation before a single runway could be laid. Despite that, the project has been built with clockwork precision and to global standards,” he said.
And, what are the global benchmarks Adani has set for the airport?
“Singapore Changi is known for efficiency and passenger experience. NMIA is designed to exceed it in ultimate capacity while matching its digital backbone. Dubai International dazzles with throughput and shopping experiences. NMIA combines scale with cultural identity, with local brands forming the key pillars of passenger experience and sustainability considerations woven into the fundamental design and planning. Seoul Incheon and Tokyo Narita are examples of Asian order and technology. We aim to meet those benchmarks on the airside while surpassing them in growth headroom. As for the big US airports — New York JFK, Los Angeles (LAX) or Chicago O’Hare — the comparison is unflattering: decades of piecemeal refurbishments versus a clean-sheet, expandable Indian hub. Those judgments will be finally earned in operations, but the design intent and infrastructure canvas are unmistakably world class,” Jeet Adani said.
The airport’s metal-petal lotus-inspired design, he added, stands for “India’s cultural motif being rendered as infrastructure.”
NMIA is opening with a capacity to handle two crore passengers annually (CPA). It is expected to reach its saturation capacity of nine CPA in about a decade, with two runways and three terminals connected by an automated people mover — built with an investment of over Rs 1 lakh crore.
“For Mumbai, NMIA’s inauguration is more than just the opening of a terminal and a runway. It is the lifting of a long-standing jinx. Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) has been operating at peak capacity of about 5.5 crore passengers annually, but the demand of this region — the country’s aviation nerve centre — was much more & continues to rise. At Mumbai airport, congestion and lack of space had become the norm. By the late 1990s it had become clear that a second airport would be required, and the Navi Mumbai site was selected back then,” Jeet Adani, the younger son of group patriarch Gautam Adani , said.
But it took close to three decades for the plan to become a reality, owing to a series of unending roadblocks. Instead of being seen as the site of an upcoming airport, for many years the land — 2,800 hectares of it — remained embroiled in court cases. The delay meant Mumbaikars suffered from lack of aerial connectivity and the city lost its busiest aviation hub slot in 2008.
“The challenges were there in 2021, when we took over the responsibility of constructing NMIA. But instead of seeing them as challenges, Gautam Adani saw them as an opportunity. On his first visit to the site, he decided NMIA would open not with a capacity of 1 CPA but double of that, simply because of the demand of the region. Speed was paramount. Financial closure, elusive for over a decade, was achieved within months. Long-stalled rehabilitation was handled with sensitivity and speed, moving families into new housing. Creeks were diverted, power lines shifted and hills flattened. The impossible suddenly seemed inevitable,” said Jeet Adani, while giving “full credit” to PM Modi for NMIA finally becoming a reality.
“The sheer physicality of the work and its scale of engineering are mind-boggling. To stabilise the marshy land, raise the platform and prepare for heavy pavements, 15 crore tons of earth had to be moved. That is more than 30 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza, as heavy as the entire soil mass of Manhattan Island, or equal to shifting 300 Burj Khalifas or 15,000 Eiffel Towers,” he said.
Controlled blasting and cutting removed an estimated 3.5 crore cubic metres of rock from Ulwe Hill. Two rivers, Ulwe and Gadhi, were rerouted along the boundary to reduce flooding risk and make the site workable. “Few airports anywhere in the world have ever demanded such feats of preparation before a single runway could be laid. Despite that, the project has been built with clockwork precision and to global standards,” he said.
And, what are the global benchmarks Adani has set for the airport?
“Singapore Changi is known for efficiency and passenger experience. NMIA is designed to exceed it in ultimate capacity while matching its digital backbone. Dubai International dazzles with throughput and shopping experiences. NMIA combines scale with cultural identity, with local brands forming the key pillars of passenger experience and sustainability considerations woven into the fundamental design and planning. Seoul Incheon and Tokyo Narita are examples of Asian order and technology. We aim to meet those benchmarks on the airside while surpassing them in growth headroom. As for the big US airports — New York JFK, Los Angeles (LAX) or Chicago O’Hare — the comparison is unflattering: decades of piecemeal refurbishments versus a clean-sheet, expandable Indian hub. Those judgments will be finally earned in operations, but the design intent and infrastructure canvas are unmistakably world class,” Jeet Adani said.
The airport’s metal-petal lotus-inspired design, he added, stands for “India’s cultural motif being rendered as infrastructure.”
You may also like
ED restores Rs 1.34 crore proceeds of crime to IDBI Bank in Kamal Kalra case
Netflix viewers left saying same thing after seeing trailer for Roald Dahl adaptation
William Saliba's transfer value soars as Real Madrid get Arsenal update after 'perfect' deal
There will be no more mistakes filling out the JEE Main exam form, with a demo link released.
Kajol and Twinkle Khanna's 'Two Much' Delivers Fun, Candid Bollywood Conversations on Prime Video
