India, July 21 -- Come September-end and flyers will be issued tickets codenamed 'NMI', for the much-awaited airport in Navi Mumbai, the second aviation hub in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

Spread across 1,160 hectares, the scale of the airport is best illustrated by the following detail - its two parallel runways are spaced 1.55km apart. The MMR will also become the first metropolitan region in India to have two international airports.

With domestic flights expected to start after the monsoon and international services scheduled for mid-2026, airlines are busy finalising schedules and arrangements are being rolled out for multi-modal connectivity. However, plans to shut and start redeveloping Terminal 1 at the Mumbai airport by...