An incredible new airport that has been under construction for over nine years will open to passengers for the first time on Christmas Day. The incredible hub, set on a 1,160-hectare (4.5-square-mile) site, has been built in Navi Mumbai, to the east of Mumbai, home to an estimated 2.6 million people in a wider metropolitan area of 26 million.

The opening of Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMI) will mean that Mumbai, India’s financial capital, will be the first city in India to have more than one airport, joining the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (BOM). Plans for the project were first proposed in 1997, and construction of the airport began in October 2016. The project, estimated to cost ₹167 billion (£1.4 billion), was planned to be implemented in three phases, with a capacity to handle 90 million passengers and 2.5 million tonnes of cargo per annum by 2032.

The airport was formally opened by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October.

The first flight to land at the airport will be IndiGo 6E460 from Bengaluru in southern India, scheduled to touch down at 8am on December 25. Shortly after, IndiGo 6E882 will depart for Hyderabad at 8.40am, marking the first outbound service from the new airport. Eventually, the airlines flying from the hub will include: Air India Express, Akasa Air, IndiGo and Star Air, all commencing operations by the end of the year.

The airport is equipped with a single 12,100-foot-long runway, featuring special technology that allows planes to land with visibility levels of up to 980 feet. The airport will eventually have two parallel runways enabling simultaneous operations.

Its single passenger terminal building features a lotus-shaped design, which will be complete once the three interconnected terminals are constructed in phases. The cargo terminal, spanning 360,000 square feet, is designed to handle 0.8 million tonnes of cargo annually.

The airport will feature 67 general aviation aircraft stands, including a dedicated heliport. It is also equipped with food courts, lounges, travelators and other facilities for passengers. 

A temporary air traffic control tower has been built, overlooking the single runway. The tower is expected to be in service for six to seven years, after which it will be replaced by a larger tower to be built near the terminal buildings, providing coverage for the planned two parallel runways.

The airport will be connected with the proposed Gold Line (Line 8) of the Mumbai Metro and is also planned to be the terminal station of the proposed Mumbai–Hyderabad high-speed rail corridor.