The airport is one of the busiest in the Indian subcontinent: now it receives almost 30 million people a year, although 10 years ago there were only 6 million. The new terminal with an area of 450 thousand m2 is designed for a passenger traffic of 40 million per year, while it remains in building an old airport building.
Passengers departing from Mumbai enter the building at the level of the upper, fourth floor, where the "main hall" is located, reminiscent of the open pavilions of the Mughal time. Its floors are supported by thirty columns with fan-shaped capitals. "Caissons" with multi-colored glass inserted into their openings are inspired by the pattern of the peacock's tail - the symbol of India.
The deep roof outreach of the airport protects the front entrance area from sun and rain. It is there that the ceremony of seeing off loved ones, typical for India, takes place: according to local rules, only people who have bought a plane ticket can enter the building, but their relatives and friends can see them through the 900-meter glass wall of the building supported by shrouds - the longest in the world (it reaches a height 15 m).
The X-shaped building plan maximized its perimeter and thus the number of bridges and aircraft parking spaces. At the same time, the path from the center of the terminal, where all departing passengers get after check-in, to any boarding gate is relatively short.
