Adani’s next big test is a $2b airport for crowded Mumbai

About 22 miles southeast of Mumbai’s badly congested airport that opened 82 years back, workers in hard hats are high up on scaffolds building an alternative. Others are flattening a nearby hill to finish the first of two runways so that India’s financial capital can finally have a second airport. In many ways, the Adani Group-helmed $2.1b project in the satellite city of Navi Mumbai is a microcosm of the massive infrastructure overhaul underway in India as its Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to outrun China. For Gautam Adani, it’s a test of whether he can put India on the global aviation map. The airport, with a lotus-shaped design mimicking India’s national flower as well as the election symbol for Modi’s party, should start operations in March next year with capacity for 20m passengers a year. That will ramp up to 90m by 2032 if there’s enough demand, according to Arun Bansal, the CEO of Adani Airport Holdings, India’s largest private sector airport operator that also runs the existing Mumbai airport. Navi Mumbai airport will be a “perfect” candidate to become an international transit hub on par with some of the world’s busiest aerodromes like Dubai, London, Frankfurt and Singapore, Bansal said in an interview. “Geographically, India is in a very advantageous situation,” he said. “There’s hardly any country where you can’t fly within 12 hours.” A wave of plane deals and airport buildouts can aid that ambition. Air India, IndiGo and upstart Akasa have ordered more than 1,100 aircraft, combined. <br/>