Passengers have voiced complaints about high travel costs and inadequate accessibility to the new airport since the Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) began operating flights on December 25. A Santacruz woman stated her flight from Kolhapur to Navi Mumbai took less than fifty minutes, yet it took her an hour and seventeen minutes to go home from the airport. Shrutika Gaekwad, a user on X (previously Twitter), shared her travel experience in a series of tweets. She noted that the growing number of scheduled flights to NMIA has grown inconvenient, even if she valued the airport's contemporary amenities. She posted on X, "My flight from Kolhapur to Navi Mumbai was less than 50 mins. The journey from Navi Mumbai airport to my home (Santacruz) is 1h17m. The new airport is nice and stuff but so many flights are being scheduled here. It’s becoming inconvenient to timely schedule the travel."
This was not the end of her concerns. She highlighted problems with last-mile connection, including the lack of taxi services, in another post. She claimed that Rapido, Ola, and Uber were either unavailable or had high fares. She posted on X, "There’s literally scarcity of cab rides from the Navi Mumbai airport. The management is horrible. My flight costed me 4.5K, OLA/Uber/Rapido is asking for 3-3.5K to reach my place, no cabs other than SUV are available but even that’s in doubt bcs the airport is too crowded."
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Social Media Reacts:
Social media users agreed with the user and questioned the airport's connectivity, pointing out that the absence of mobility makes it costly and challenging, particularly for people living in the western suburbs. One user wrote, "I will never voluntarily choose this airport to land at." Another added, "Every airport should connect to the city centre via a rapid metro system like Delhi Airport. Otherwise, it fails to offer convenience and affordability." "Every new airport should be connected by metro first," one user commented."Navi Mumbai airport is way too costly," another said. Another user wrote,"It’s a common practice to have an airport outside the main city. We have been spoilt for years by having our airport in the middle of the city." "You must be living near the SCLR which is why you reached so quickly. Imagine the plight of those between Andheri to Borivali. This Navi Mumbai Airport is simply not for them," a user commented.