Mumbai airport drops winter international slot cuts

Winter schedule protected

Mumbai International Airport Ltd said on Tuesday it will not cut any international slots during the winter schedule, which runs from 25 October to the end of March. Passengers booked on international flights to or from Mumbai this winter will not see cancellations or a move to Navi Mumbai airport.

The decision defused a standoff over MIAL's plan to cut a third of international departures this winter to make room at Terminal 2 for domestic flights displaced by Terminal 1 redevelopment. It followed a meeting between the airport's airline operators' committee and Adani Airport Holdings Ltd, which runs both Mumbai and Navi Mumbai airports. An MIAL spokesperson said airlines had committed to supporting the T1 redevelopment, with traffic balancing to begin from the summer schedule.

The summer schedule runs from around 27 March to 31 October next year. Some international flights could still be cancelled or moved to Navi Mumbai then. MIAL said it would support any airline that wants to shift operations to Navi Mumbai airport, which Adani Airport Holdings also operates.

What was proposed

MIAL's 1 October letter proposed discontinuing 265 of the 770 weekly international departure slots at T2 from 23:59 on 25 October, the start of the winter schedule. The operator and airlines described the reduction as 33%, though by arithmetic 265 of 770 is closer to 34%.

The cut covered 46 Indian and foreign carriers and would have removed about 38 international departures a day. IndiGo faced losing 74 of the 224 weekly international flights it operates from Mumbai, and Air India 33 of its 100. Akasa Air faced 11, Air India Express 7 and SpiceJet 5, while Emirates and Etihad Airways were each down for 10 out of 28 weekly services.

MIAL had asked airlines to identify by 4pm on 6 October the slots they would surrender, and said it would choose the slots itself if carriers did not respond. It had planned to start reallocating vacated T2 check-in counters, baggage belts, boarding gates and office space to domestic operators from 26 October. The aim was to move around 5 million passengers a year from T1 to T2, about 9% of the airport's roughly 55 million annual passengers, Adani Airports said on 3 October.

MIAL says it needs the reduction because T1 is an ageing facility with long-standing safety concerns, and it points to a fire at the terminal in April 2026. It plans a phased rebuild rather than closing the whole building at once, starting with the North Section of Terminal 1B, roughly one-third of T1's capacity.

Why airlines refused

Carriers formally rejected the reduction, CNBC-TV18 reported, arguing that support for refurbishing T1 was not consent to cancelling approved international services. They said the winter schedule had been approved in June 2026, with aircraft, crews, connecting flights and bookings already planned around it. Airlines also said removing multiple weekly frequencies can affect aircraft rotations and onward connections beyond a single flight. They asked the ministry to ensure no operational measures were imposed without airline agreement.

MIAL says it has consulted airlines extensively since 2020 and that the redevelopment proposal was presented to the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority and later incorporated into the approved tariff framework. Airlines dispute whether those talks amounted to agreement on the operational plan.

IATA told the ministry it opposed compulsory relocations and any requirement that carriers shift a set share of their Mumbai operations to Navi Mumbai. It asked the ministry to protect existing slot entitlements through the transition. After the ministry deferred the plan, IATA's slots team emailed airline chiefs urging them to negotiate a longer transition and to draw on global slot rules and the ministry's own allocation guidelines, Mint reported.

Government intervention

The Times of India reported the Ministry of Civil Aviation intervened on 3 October, called a stakeholder meeting and deferred MIAL's plan. The Free Press Journal, citing a CNBC-TV18 report, said the ministry put the proposed slot cuts on hold and asked the airport operator and airlines to work toward an acceptable transition plan.

The terminal behind the fight

T1 handles only domestic traffic, about 15 million domestic passengers a year. Phased redevelopment was set to begin on 15 January 2027, with one-third of the terminal demolished, displacing 5 million domestic passengers a year. Adani Airports said about 91% of Mumbai airport's passenger traffic would be unaffected by the first phase.

What happens next

A joint working group will take two weeks to draw up an implementation plan for the T1 redevelopment. AAHL director Jeet Adani and chief executive Arun Bansal assured airlines of minimal disruption and full respect for historical slot allocations, an MIAL spokesperson said. There was no word on possible new timelines for the phased demolition of T1.

Both sides will meet again on 28 October and, until then, engage with each airline's network and slot teams, MIAL said.