Navi Mumbai airport to open this Christmas; Akasa Air and Indigo start bookings

This Christmas, it won't just be Santa flying into Navi Mumbai. The Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) will finally open to travellers on December 25, and bookings for flights in and out of the airport have already opened.

The airport was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 8, post which customs and immigrations set up was done to prepare for international operations.

Sticking to a 12-hour window, for the first few months, the airport will be starting out with limited flight schedules, which will gradually increase. Indigo and Akasa Air have announced their operations from Christmas day, and ticket sales went live on Saturday.

Akasa Air's maiden flight to Navi Mumbai which will take off from Delhi at 5.25 am and land in Ulwe at 8.10 am.

Following this, the airline will fly seven schedules between Navi Mumbai and Goa, as well as Kochi. From New Year's Eve, it will add another schedule between Navi Mumbai and Ahmedabad on 31st of December.

Indigo, offering more destinations, will be flying a total of 10 schedules between Navi Mumbai and Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Lucknow, North Goa (Mopa), Jaipur, Nagpur, Cochin and Mangalore.

Indigo further in the future will be connecting NMIA to a total of 95 airports around the country.

Indigo's first flight into NMIA will be a daily flight from Bangalore to Navi Mumbai, which is scheduled to take off at 6.10am and land in NMIA by 8 am.