Civil aviation ministry calls airlines in as Mumbai plans to drop 265 international flights

The civil aviation ministry has called airlines to a meeting on Tuesday, 6 October, after Mumbai airport told carriers it will cancel 265 international flights from Terminal 2 starting 26 October. The airport has given the airlines until 6 October to decide which 265 flights come off the board. If they do not, the operator will pick the flights and cancel them. CNBC-TV18 reported both the deadline and the ministry meeting, citing sources.

The operator is Adani Airports. The cut is tied to a shift of domestic flying out of Terminal 1 and into Terminal 2 before a phased redevelopment of T1. International flights that now use T2 have to give up slots so the domestic operation can move. Airlines have objected to the transition plan and asked the government to step in. The International Air Transport Association and the Federation of Indian Airlines are expected at Tuesday's meeting with ministry officials.

What 265 flights means on a winter schedule

A figure of 265 international flights is not a single day's board. It is a set of operations the airport wants removed from T2 as the domestic shift begins. Starting 26 October puts the cut at the edge of the winter schedule, when European and Gulf frequencies are already fixed and published. A carrier that loses a named flight on 26 October has 20 days, from Monday, to retime passengers, crews and slots. A carrier that has not named its own sacrifice by Tuesday may find the airport has named it.

That is the leverage in the letter. The airport is not asking for a voluntary trim. It is setting a number, a date, and a default: decide, or we decide. IATA's presence at the ministry meeting is the industry's attempt to move that default from a private operator's letter to a room where the ministry sits. FIA represents Indian carriers. Foreign airlines that use T2 are more likely to speak through IATA.

Why T1's redevelopment lands on T2

Mumbai's two terminals are not interchangeable. T1 has been the domestic shed for IndiGo, SpiceJet and the low-cost banks. T2 has carried the long-haul and the full-service international banks, plus a share of domestic. Closing or rebuilding T1 without a place to put those domestic departures means T2 has to absorb them. International slots are the flexible piece only in the operator's telling. For a Gulf carrier with a night bank into Mumbai, a cancelled rotation is a lost aircraft-day, not a diary change.

Adani Airports has run the Mumbai concession since 2021. Redevelopment of T1 has been part of the capital plan for years. What is new this week is the number, the 26 October start, and the 6 October gun to the airlines' head. The ministry's decision to call a meeting for the deadline day is an admission that the operator and the carriers are not going to settle it between themselves before the default kicks in.

What Tuesday can and cannot settle

Tuesday's meeting can do three things. It can force a shared list of the 265, so no airline discovers its cancellation in an airport notice. It can move the date past 26 October, which would spare the first weeks of the winter schedule. Or it can bless the operator's default and leave the carriers to appeal slot by slot. It cannot, in one sitting, rebuild T1. The capacity problem is physical. Two terminals, one of them about to be rebuilt, and an international board the operator has already decided is 265 flights too large.

Passengers with tickets after 26 October on a T2 international flight do not yet know if theirs is on the list. That is the point of the 6 October deadline. Until the airlines name the flights, or the airport names them, the public schedule and the operator's plan are two different documents. The ministry has put itself in the room where those documents have to become one.