First commercial landing at Navi Mumbai airport, IndiGo's A320 aircraft gets water cannon salute

Water cannon salute was given to an Indigo Airlines A320 aircraft which landed successfully.

The Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) carried out its first commercial flight validation test on Sunday. An IndiGo Airlines A320 aircraft successfully touched down on the runway ahead of its commercial launch in early 2025. The aircraft was welcomed with the traditional water salute by two Crash Fire Tenders (CFT) of NMIA. The touchdown of a commercial aircraft validates and establishes the synchronised functioning of Instrument Approach Procedures at NMIA.
The flight test was conducted on the runway 08/26 and was supervised by senior officials from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Airports Authority of India (AAI), Customs, Immigration, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Limited (CIDCO), India Meteorological Department (IMD), Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), as well as Adani Airport Holdings Limited (AAHL) and other key stakeholders.

Navi Mumbai International Airport’s first two phases likely to be commissioned by March 2025 With 20 million passengers handling capacity per year.

#WATCH | Maharashtra: Navi Mumbai International Airport successfully conducts first flight validation test.Water cannon salute was given to an Indigo Airlines A320 aircraft which landed successfully. pic.twitter.com/zEKbpRdKrT
ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2024

The touchdown of a commercial aircraft validates and establishes the synchronised functioning of Instrument Approach Procedures at NMIA. The exercise includes technical assessment, landing and take-off maneuvers, paving the way for the DGCA to validate the data collected from the flight and for NMIA to receive the aerodrome license, which is essential to operate the airport.

"Our ambition is to do the commercial inauguration of the airport by April 17," Adani Airport Holdings Ltd CEO Arun Bansal told media after the successful trial landing of the first civil passenger aircraft. Bansal said that the domestic operations will start from the second half of May as after the inaugural flight some procedures will have to be followed which will take about four weeks time.

And by the end of July, he said, "we expect to start international operations." Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMAI) took a further step toward becoming operational with its first commercial flight validation test, with the successful touchdown at 1.32 pm at runway 26/08, it said.

"This is a momentous day for Navi Mumbai International Airport. The successful completion of the validation flight is a major milestone, and we are now one step closer to operationalising the airport, prioritising safety at every step," said Bansal.

NMIAL is part of Adani Airports Holdings Limited and is owned by Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) (74 per cent shareholding) and CIDCO (26 per cent shareholding). The CIDCO, a Government of Maharashtra undertaking is also the Concessioning Authority for the project.

The exercise includes technical assessment, landing and take-off manoeuvres, paving the way for the DGCA to validate the data collected from the flight and for NMIA to receive the aerodrome license, which is essential to operate the airport.

Post the successful landing, NMIA's established flight procedures will be published in the Electronic Aeronautical Information Publication (eAIP) for international promulgation.

Prior to the landing of the validation flight, NMIA successfully conducted the flight calibration of the Instrument Landing System (ILS) and Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI), subsequently drafting instrument approach procedures to prepare itself for the arrival of the validation flight.

*With  Agency Inputs