Slots of 10 Gulf Airlines Denied Under Pretext of Shifting to Navi Mumbai

Amidst the process of shifting aircraft from Mumbai Airport to Navi Mumbai Airport, slot requests from 10 small Gulf airlines have been rejected. According to airline sources, the airport, operated by the Adani Group, has asked airlines to shift to Navi Mumbai using the pretext of renovation work.

According to a report by The Hindu, the airlines whose slots were denied include Oman Air, Bahrain's Gulf Air, Sharjah-based Air Arabia, Kuwait Airways and Kuwait's Jazeera Airways, Doha-based Qatar Airways, as well as four airlines from Saudi Arabia—flyadeal, flynas, Riyadh Air, and Saudia.

This decision comes at a time when Mumbai Airport is planning to suspend flights for 14 international destinations, which will now be operated from Navi Mumbai. These destinations include Bahrain, Dammam, Dhaka, Doha, Fujairah, Jakarta, Jeddah, Kathmandu, Kuwait City, Medina, Muscat, Ras Al Khaimah, Riyadh, and Sharjah.

A representative of an affected airline has registered protest against this decision and asked the airport to reconsider. He questioned how a low-cost carrier could split its operations between two different airports. The representative expressed concerns regarding staffing, ground handling, cargo, and the airline's catchment market, demanding a gradual phased shifting. He added that the airport administration is adopting a very rigid stance and a more cooperative approach could have been adopted instead of imposing this decision.

This entire controversy has arisen due to the redevelopment plan of Terminal 1 of Mumbai International Airport Limited. Under this plan, some domestic operations will be moved to Terminal 2. To create space for this, the airport operator has proposed reducing international operations at Terminal 2, leading to the possibility of shifting some flights to Navi Mumbai International Airport.

Out of the flight capacity the airport planned to move, domestic carriers have already shifted approximately 60% of the capacity. The current tension has arisen because the remaining 40% capacity is now sought from international airlines.

In October, the airport proposed to temporarily close 265 slots out of 770 weekly international departure slots at Terminal 2, affecting 46 airlines. The airlines protested this schedule and the mandatory migration, expressing concerns over the lack of consultation, passenger connections, and the readiness of ground-handling and other services at Navi Mumbai.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation intervened in this dispute. Subsequently, the Adani Group has postponed the proposed shifting from the winter schedule to the Summer 2027 schedule and clarified that there will be no disruption to current slots during the winter.