Mumbai: The Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) has the potential to become a hub airport, where major airlines could set up base, according to Prabhat Mahapatra, the chief operating officer of NMIA.
Speaking at the Infrastructure Conclave organised by the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Friday, Mahapatra said, “We have air carriers like IndiGo, who are strong and profitable. We have Air India. With these two strong air carriers in India, we see that there is potential to create transport hubs in India.”
Major airlines use hub airports as their base, and direct a majority of their routes and connections through those locations. Such strategically located transfer points help travellers reach their destinations with minimum transfers. Examples of hub airports where passengers would change aircrafts would be those in Dubai, Amsterdam, London, Hong Kong, or Singapore, for those travelling from Mumbai to the US or Canada.
Mahapatra said, “We are engaging with major carriers because we feel that India has all the ingredients to become a big hub.” Addressing the gathering, he added that if NMIA, a project of the Adani Group, was to become a hub airport, India would be geographically well located to connect flights coming from the east or fast east, to the west.
According to Mahapatra, unlike New York and London which have multiple airports in the city, India was lacking in this area of aviation. “We have been focussing on the origin–destination travel. If you look at Dubai or some airports in the Middle East, they thrive on the transfer revenue,” Mahapatra said.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) will be India’s first region to have two airports. So far, all major Indian cities have only one airport containing either a single runway or multiple runways.
NMIA also intends to tap into potential passenger traffic beyond the MMR, into the state’s rural and remote areas. Once the airport is operational, it will enhance trade as well as improve regional air connectivity, said a representative of the NMIA.
As an example, an NMIA official said, “One thing that we have been missing at Mumbai is the regional development. An airport not only develops the city, it develops the other cities.” The official explained that there are airports in cities like Kolhapur and Solapur, but due to the crowded state of the Mumbai airport, there aren’t enough flights connecting such regions to the MMR.
The official said that once NMIA was operational, it could connect to such airports. “Those airports will get service and traffic and they will be energised. And that is how this will promote regional development also,” the official added.
According to Mahapatra, the planned hub at NMIA holds potential for transporting cargo too. “This is not only for passengers, we are also going to do it for cargo,” he said, and added that the airport would have the capacity to handle cargo worth 3.2 million metric tonnes every year.