Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated a new international airport in India’s financial capital Mumbai, marking a step forward in expansion of the country’s fast-growing aviation network.

Built by business conglomerate Adani Group at an estimated cost of $2.2 billion, the first phase of Navi Mumbai International Airport--as it is officially named--is expected to commence operations in December, and emerge as a key passenger and cargo hub in Asia.

It will also help ease congestion at the city’s existing Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, one of the country’s busiest. Mumbai is the only metropolitan city in India to have a second international airport. 

The latest project underscores India’s broader push to modernize infrastructure and strengthen air connectivity as the economy grows and air travels surge.

“Navi Mumbai International Airport is a project that shows a glimpse of a developed India.," Modi said during the inauguration.

Over the past decade, the government has launched and upgraded dozens of airports to link smaller cities and improve cargo movement, aiming to make air travel a key driver of economic growth.

The number of airports in the country has increased to 160 from 74 in 2014, as per official data.

India is the world’s third-largest air transport market in terms of departing passenger traffic, behind the U.S. and China, according to a report by the International Air Transport Association in June.  

Approximately 174 million passengers travelled from and within India by air in 2024, accounting for around 4.2% of the world's total.

“This new airport will help connect the farmers of Maharashtra with the supermarkets of Europe and Middle East,” Modi said.

The Navi Mumbai airport will have a capacity to handle up to 20 million passengers annually to start with and go up to 90 million over the next few years when all the four planned terminals get operational, the Adani Group said in a statement. 

Spread across 1,160 hectares, the sprawling airport will start with an annual cargo handling capacity of 0.5 million tons that would be ultimately augmented to 3.2 million tons. The airport’s scale of operations will be comparable to the likes of those in Atlanta, Dubai and London’s Heathrow.

It will be the first airport in India planned to be connected by water taxis in addition to high speed rail, underground metro trains, roads and highway networks.

In his inaugural speech, Modi said the Navi Mumbai airport and its associated infrastructure will strengthen the city's position as a global hub of growth and opportunity.