Akasa Air to run Mumbai-Jeddah flights from Navi Mumbai airport from December

Akasa Air will operate its Mumbai-Jeddah flights from Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) instead of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) from December 2026. Bookings for these flights are already open.

Akasa Air and Adani Airport Holdings Limited (AAHL) announced the phased change on Tuesday. Bookings opened on October 26 and can be made on the airline's website, its Android and iOS apps, and through online travel agencies (OTA).

The airline said the move builds on its existing presence at NMIA and will help create a two-airport system in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. The new airport is expanding its international flights, and the Jeddah service will be part of that.

Passengers travelling on this route in December should check their booking details to confirm which airport their flight operates from. The airline has not said from which date in December the change will take effect.

Akasa Air began operations in August 2022. The airline says it has since flown more than 31 million passengers. Its network spans 31 domestic and seven international cities.

Its international destinations include Jeddah, Riyadh and Doha, besides Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait City in Kuwait, Phuket in Thailand and Hanoi in Vietnam. The domestic network includes cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kochi, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata and Navi Mumbai. According to the company, its fleet currently has 44 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, with 226 aircraft on order. The aircraft are fitted with CFM LEAP-1B engines.

AAHL operates eight airports in the country, including Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, as well as Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram.

Akasa Air is not alone. With a plan to redevelop Terminal 1 of CSMIA, Air India Express and IndiGo are also preparing to move some flights gradually to Navi Mumbai. Air India Express will begin four domestic flights a day from NMIA in December 2026, and select international services will also operate from there from January 2027. IndiGo plans to begin international flights from NMIA in February 2027 and will gradually move 12 daily international flights of CSMIA there in the coming months.

According to the airport operator, the target in the first phase is to shift about five million passengers to NMIA. Of these, about 3 million passengers make up roughly 70 per cent of the traffic shifting in the first phase. This temporary change amounts to about 9 per cent of CSMIA's annual traffic of 55 million, while about 91 per cent of the traffic will continue to operate from CSMIA.