Mumbai Airport Leaves 12 Overseas Carriers Without 2027 Slots

Mumbai International Airport Ltd. (MIAL) has finalized Summer 2027 slot allocations for 38 of 50 overseas carriers, leaving 12 without Mumbai slots as it prepares to shift some international services to Navi Mumbai during Terminal 1 redevelopment. The affected airlines may operate about 16 daily departures to 14 destinations from the new airport, according to sources cited in reporting on the allocation. MIAL Chief Airport Officer Vishnu Mohan Jha told the Civil Aviation Ministry in an October 30 letter that the operator wants flights to each of 14 international destinations to operate from a single airport in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. The destinations include Bahrain, Doha, Dhaka, Jakarta, Kathmandu, Kuwait City, Muscat, Riyadh and Sharjah. MIAL says grouping flights by destination would make connections and passenger movement easier than splitting services to the same destination between the two airports. The proposed transition is tied to redevelopment of Mumbai airport’s Terminal 1. MIAL says it needs to temporarily move traffic equivalent to about five million passengers a year to make room for the work. Indian carriers account for about three million passengers of...