Adani Group plans to invest ₹1 lakh crore in its airports business over the next five years, betting on sustained growth in India’s aviation sector, which is expected to expand at 15-16% annually, a top group official said.

“On the airport side, ₹1 lakh crore in the next five years,” Jeet Adani, director of Adani Airports and younger son of billionaire Gautam Adani, told PTI ahead of the start of commercial operations at Navi Mumbai International Airport on December 25.

Navi Mumbai International Airport will become the latest addition to the Adani Group’s expanding airport portfolio, further strengthening its presence in India’s aviation infrastructure.

Also Read | Navi Mumbai airport and the making of a city

The airport, being developed by Navi Mumbai International Airport Ltd (NMIAL) in which the Adani Group holds a 74% stake, is scheduled to commence commercial operations on December 25.

Built at an initial cost of ₹19,650 crore, the first phase will have a capacity to handle 20 million passengers annually, with plans to scale up to 90 million passengers over time, easing capacity constraints at Mumbai’s existing airport and supporting long-term growth in the region’s air traffic.

Adani group had acquired the Mumbai airport from GVK Group.

Beside the two airports in Mumbai, Adani Group operates six other airports at Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, Jaipur and Mangaluru.

This portfolio includes a mix of metro and regional airports, with the group also planning to bid aggressively for the next round of airport privatisations.

“As a staunch believer, bullish believer in this industry, we would be 100% very aggressive in the next round of bidding for all 11 (airports),” he said.

On investments in the Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) and Flight Simulation Training Centre (FSTC) verticals, he said, “It’s a little early to say because we are still in the process of finalising a longer-term strategy and then putting a number to it.” However, he added, “at the end of the day, we are deep into it and we want to keep growing our expertise and our depth.” Mr. Adani said India’s aviation sector – encompassing airports and airlines – could sustain mid-teens growth for the next decade or more.

“The Indian aviation industry as a whole can continuously grow at 15-16%, mid-teens, year-on-year for the next 10-15 years,” he said, pointing to low per-capita air travel compared to China. “Even if we get to China, it means the whole sector has to grow by a multiple of cities.” Calling the growth runway long-term, he said, “So that’s a very long growth pathway that we have. And all the signs show that it’s seemingly done.”

Highlighting capacity constraints at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA), Mr. Adani said, “Mumbai Airport was supply constrained from 2016 onwards and wasn’t able to service the additional demand that was coming through,” adding that “with the start of Navi Mumbai Airport, we will finally see some relaxation there.” Terming the commissioning of Navi Mumbai International Airport a landmark moment, he said, “In terms of Indian aviation, this is an extremely important moment. Firstly, we are seeing an asset of this size coming online and secondly, it’s not that it stops at this size. There is four times growth still left to do.”

The Adani Group, through its airport arm Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL), is India’s largest airport infrastructure operator. It controls a significant share of India’s air traffic, accounting for roughly 23% of passenger movements and about 33% of cargo traffic nationwide.

In parallel, AAHL is investing in capacity upgrades and phased expansions at existing facilities and scaling ancillary services such as non-aeronautical retail and city-side developments, reflecting its push to transform hard infrastructure into diversified revenue streams.

“We have separated the two businesses. One is the airport infrastructure and the other one is the aircraft services business. So that can include dual use, defence and civilian use,” Mr. Adani said.

In the previous round of privatisation in 2019, Adani Group won six airports – Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, Jaipur and Mangaluru – and acquired Mumbai Airport from the GVK Group in 2021.

The Civil Aviation Ministry has identified 11 airports, including six smaller ones, for operations under the public-private partnership model, while the National Monetisation Pipeline envisages leasing 25 Airports Authority of India-operated airports between 2022 and 2025.

Published – December 19, 2025 01:28 pm IST

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Mumbai:

An IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Qatar’s Doha has been delayed with passengers alleging that they waited inside the aircraft for nearly five hours. The passengers claimed they were eventually asked to deboard the plane — which was scheduled to take off at 3:55 am — and were taken to the immigration waiting area at the Mumbai airport due to some “technical issue” with the aircraft.

About 250 to 300 passengers are reportedly stranded at the airport.

“We were not allowed to deboard the plane because immigration was over,” a passenger, who was flying with his wife and a child, told NDTV.

“They allowed us to wait in a holding area after we fought with them. No official is talking to us,” he alleged.

Another flyer said that they were not given any water or food.

“It is a chaos over here. People are worried as their jobs are at risk. Passengers are waiting with their children,” he said.

There was no official statement from IndiGo. However, the airline responded to a user on X, who alleged that the flight to Doha was “stuck” at Mumbai Airport due to a “technical problem”.

“The immigration authority is not giving permission to offload the passengers,” the flyer wrote on X, to which the airline said it “sincerely regrets the inconvenience”.

Hi, we sincerely regret the inconvenience. We request you to kindly share your contact number via DM so we may connect with you over a call. ~Laurette https://t.co/xcJPAig2qK

— IndiGo (@IndiGo6E) September 15, 2024

Earlier Saturday, passengers of a SpiceJet flight going from Delhi to Bihar’s Darbhanga had a heated exchange with the airline officials after the airline allegedly canceled the flight five minutes before boarding. They were waiting to board SpiceJet flight No. SG 495.

Some of the passengers who have been flying on the Delhi-Darbhanga route alleged the airline has been canceling flights on this route frequently for the last few months.

The airline hasn’t issued a statement on the matter yet.

Mumbai:

Five persons have been arrested here after a bag with an inflammable chemical caught fire before it was loaded on a Mumbai-Addis Ababa flight of Ethiopian Airlines at the Mumbai international airport, police said on Saturday.

The incident took place on Friday morning.

Samir Narayanchandra Bishwas (31), a resident of Nadiyal in West Bengal who was allegedly carrying the bag, was arrested along with Nandan Dinesh Yadav (26), Suresh Subba Singh (46), Vishwanath Balasubramaniam Senjundhar (37) and Akhilesh Gajraj Yadav (37), said an official of Sahar police station.

Naveen Sharma, suspected to be in ‘Congo’, was wanted in the case, he added.

While the luggage was being loaded in the flight around 10.30 am on Friday, smoke was seen coming out of a bag which soon caught fire but it was quickly doused, said the police official.

Samir Bishwas was detained and questioned at the police station. He allegedly told police that one Nandan Yadav had given him the bag, to be delivered to Naveen Sharma in ‘Congo’.

Subsequently, Nandan Yadav and three others including logistic company employees too were arrested.

The bag contained 10 kg of inflammable material, half of it in liquid form and the remaining in the form of powder, the official said, adding that it has been sent to a forensic laboratory to ascertain its exact nature.

While Samir Bishwas and others were arrested under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, probe into the purpose of carrying the inflammable material on a flight was being probed, he added.

Ethiopian Airlines too issued a statement about the incident.

“On August 16 morning, at Mumbai Airport a baggage container carrying baggage checked in for ET641 (Mumbai-Addis Ababa) in the ramp area was observed with fire. The incident occurred at the ramp while the container was being transported from the baggage make-up area to the aircraft,” it said.

“The airport safety, security and fire teams responded immediately and put out the fire with all necessary safety procedures. The affected container and baggage is under investigation by the authorities at Mumbai airport,” it said.

The aircraft was dispatched following the standard safety procedures as nothing had happened at the aircraft side, the airline added. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Airports across India are still grappling with issues from yesterday’s massive Microsoft outage. Although the situation has improved significantly since Friday’s chaotic scenes, passengers continue to face challenges, particularly at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI).

At Delhi’s IGI Airport’s Terminal 3, passengers experienced some improvement today, but a few problems persist. Yesterday, the automatic self-drop baggage and check-in machines were non-functional, causing long queues outside Gate No. 5 in Terminal 3. While many passengers can print out their boarding passes today, international travellers still face issues with boarding pass generation, with some being issued manual passes inside the airport.

The Digi Yatra machines at Gates 1-3, which facilitate seamless entry, remain non-operational, necessitating manual entries. Display boards showing wait times, flight schedules, and other crucial information, which were down yesterday, are now functional. However, the overall system has not yet fully recovered, as confirmed by airport officials.

Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport fared better than its counterparts in Delhi and Bengaluru. Although long queues were reported, operations are running more smoothly today. Nonetheless, two flights, one to Varanasi and one to Kochi, were cancelled this morning, and several international flights were rescheduled. This is an improvement from yesterday when nine domestic flights, all operated by IndiGo, were cancelled. IndiGo has warned of potential cancellations today but expressed optimism that yesterday’s disruption will not be repeated as the Microsoft outage was not reported today.

Global Outage

The outage, attributed to an update by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, disrupted Microsoft’s Windows systems worldwide, affecting financial institutions, airlines, hospitals, and media channels. In India, this caused airline check-in systems to crash, leading to delays and the cancellation of dozens of flights. IndiGo alone cancelled around 200 flights, with hundreds more delayed as manual check-in procedures significantly slowed the process.

The Indian financial sector experienced minor disruptions at about ten banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), which have largely been resolved, according to the Reserve Bank of India. However, the outage’s impact on airports from Chennai to Delhi was severe, with passengers facing long queues due to unavailable web check-in services and manual ticketing processes.

Airlines such as IndiGo, Akasa Air, Vistara, Air India, SpiceJet, and Air India Express acknowledged the issues via social media. Passengers received handwritten boarding passes, and the manual ticketing and luggage check-in process extended to 30-40 minutes per person, leading to frustration and overcrowded lounges.

Other Airports

Besides Delhi and Mumbai, high-density airports like Bengaluru and Chennai saw the most significant impacts. At Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport, airlines such as IndiGo, Akasa, SpiceJet, and Air India Express initiated manual check-ins to ensure minimal disruption.  The technical glitch has been fully resolved at Bengaluru airport, and operations have returned to normal. However, there is slight congestion due to the residual impact of yesterday’s operational delays. Due to the backlog, it will take a few hours for the crowds to clear.

Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport experienced cancellations of 23 flights, including IndiGo flights to Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, Ahmedabad, and Bengaluru.

Ministerial Assurances

Union Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu assured that the ministry and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) are managing the situation using manual methods to minimise disruption. Minister for Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw confirmed that the cause of the outage had been identified and that updates had been released to resolve the issue. According to the Aviation Ministry, systems at airports across the country started operating normally from 3 am this morning. 

“By noon today, we expect all issues to be resolved,” the ministry said in a statement. 

CrowdStrike confirmed the problem was due to a defect in a content update for Windows hosts and not a security incident or cyberattack.

Mumbai:

The recent Air India Airport Services Limited recruitment drive for airport loaders at Mumbai Airport has thrown light on a stark reality: a large number of educated job aspirants are now competing for basic handyman positions.

Among the sea of applicants, many hold advanced degrees and have travelled long distances in search of employment. Prathameshwar, a second-year BBA student from Buldhana district, journeyed over 400 kilometres for a chance at the job. “I have come to apply for the post of handyman. They are offering a salary of Rs 22,500,” he said. When asked if he would abandon his studies if selected, he responded, “What do we do? There is so much unemployment. I urge the government to create more job opportunities.”

Another candidate, armed with a BA degree, admitted that he was not entirely sure what the job of a handyman entailed but stressed his desperate need for employment. Adding to this trend is a candidate from Rajasthan’s Alwar, holding an MCom degree, who applied for the position despite the job’s basic educational requirement. “I am preparing for government job exams as well, someone told me that the salary here is good. So I have come,” he explained.

The salary for airport loaders and handymen ranges between Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 per month. The job’s educational criteria are minimal, but candidates must be physically strong enough to handle the demanding tasks of loading and unloading luggage, operating baggage belts, and managing ramp tractors.

Thousands of job seekers converged on Mumbai’s Kalina on Tuesday for a walk-in interview hosted by Air India Airport Services Ltd. 

The sheer volume of applicants at the Mumbai airport – over 25,000 for just 2,216 vacancies – led to chaotic scenes reminiscent of a stampede. Air India staff struggled to control the massive crowd, with visuals showing applicants jostling to reach form counters. Reports indicated that many candidates waited for hours without food and water, causing several to feel unwell. 

With the crowd growing uncontrollably, applicants were instructed to submit their resumes and disperse.

Mumbai:

A 32-year-old man being taken to Goa after his arrest from Uttar Pradesh dashed out of Mumbai airport and fled despite a chase by a cop from the coastal state, police said on Thursday.

Imad Wasim Khan made the daring escape around 6 am on Wednesday after a Goa police team arrived with him at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, an official said.

Khan is an accused in a case registered at Mapusa in Goa for alleged wrongful confinement, voluntarily causing hurt, and personating a public servant, he said.

Based on inputs, Goa recently police visited Khan’s hometown in UP’s Saharanpur and took him into custody with the help of their local counterparts.

The two-member police team boarded a flight to Mumbai and arrived at T2 (terminal 2). As one of the cops was asking the airport staff about T1, from where they were to take a flight to Goa, Khan escaped from the clutches of the other.

The policeman gave chase, but Khan sprinted out of the airport and got into a car, according to the FIR registered at the Sahar police station here.

The cop even tried to pull Khan out but he managed to stay put inside despite a scuffle and escaped in the vehicle, the official said citing the FIR.

The two Goa policemen filed a complaint against Khan after they failed to trace him, the official said.

A case has been registered against Khan and efforts are on to track him down, the official added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

An Indigo flight landing on the runway at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport while an Air India flight is still in the process of taking off.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has taken swift action by de-rostering an Air Traffic Control officer (ATCO) officer from Mumbai following a potentially disastrous incident involving two aircraft on the same runway.

The incident occurred on June 8 at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (BOM). In the early hours of Saturday, IndiGo flight 5053, arriving from Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport (IDR), landed on runway 27 while Air India flight 657 was still in the process of taking off for Thiruvananthapuram International Airport (TRV).

Both flights involved Airbus A320neo aircraft. The close timing of the landing and takeoff created a hazardous situation that could have resulted in a significant accident.

The DGCA’s immediate response to de-roster the ATC officer involved reflects the seriousness of the incident and the emphasis on maintaining strict safety standards in aviation operations.

An investigation is underway to understand the circumstances that led to this breach in protocol and to implement measures to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

“Mumbai and Delhi airports are high-intensity airports, operating around 46 flights per hour. ATCOs are responsible for maintaining the safe and secure arrival and departure of planes and passengers. In the viral video, the visibility appears to be quite good. If there is reasonable assurance through visual observation, the traffic separation minima can be reduced. In this incident, it appeared that the departing aircraft had already reached B2 speed and was nose-up while the arriving aircraft was touching down on Runway 27. The matter is under investigation,” said Alok Yadav, General Secretary of the ATC Guild India.

After reviewing the footage recorded and shared widely on social media, it appeared that the Air India flight was accelerating down the runway as the IndiGo flight descended towards the ground.

As the A320neo got closer, the Air India flight managed to get airborne, likely unaware of the other aircraft approaching from behind. It was able to take off without incident.

However IndiGo stated after the incident, “On Jun 8, IndiGo flight 6E 6053 from Indore was given landing clearance by ATC at Mumbai Airport. The Pilot in Command continued the approach and landing and followed ATC instructions.

At IndiGo, passenger safety is paramount to us, and we have reported the incident as per procedure.”

Mumbai:

 Mumbai Customs seized over 4.65 Kg of gold valued at Rs 2.49 crores across 12 different cases on Friday.

According to the Airport Commissionerate, Mumbai Customs Zone-III, gold was concealed in dry iron, frame of check-in bag, clothes worn, on the body of the pax, body cavity, check-in and cabin bag.

Earlier on February 22, Mumbai Customs seized over 8 kg of gold valued at approximately Rs 4 crores and five iPhones across eight different cases.

Gold was concealed in the frame of the check-in bag, box of crockery, clothes worn, hand bag.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Mumbai:

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) foiled smuggling bids at Mumbai International Airport and seized 7 kg cocaine worth Rs 70 crore by arresting four carriers, including two foreign nationals, in separate incidents, an official said on Tuesday.

The Mumbai zonal unit of DRI also recovered a gun with five bullets from one of the accused who couldn’t produce legal documents, he said. The weapon has been handed over to the local police.

All four incidents were reported in the last two days.

A DRI team apprehended two persons who were trying to smuggle in cocaine by concealing it in false cavities of their trolley bags, he said. Separately, it was found that four carriers had swallowed (cocaine) drug capsules. They were admitted to state-run JJ Hospital and capsules were extracted, he said.

In a follow-up action, DRI officials seized narcotic drugs (cocaine) from the residence of a man in Virar in neighbouring Palghar district, the official said, adding that it was smuggled from Nairobi through the Delhi airport.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)