It was a moment of pride and emotion. At 1.15pm sharp, as Air India flight AI 343, the first to land at the new terminal (T2) touched down on Wednesday, it was greeted by the customary canon shower — a tradition of welcome in aviation circles.
All awash and sparkling under the afternoon sun, the aircraft moved down the runway, gleaming with pride as it were. A few employees, who had been part of this infrastructure project, looked on, trying unsuccessfully to hold back their tears.
Such was the scene as the maiden flight landed at the new terminal which was thrown open to the public.
Built at a cost of over Rs5,500 crore, T2 is a state-of-the-art terminal built as part of a plan to modernise the airport.
As the first batch of passengers disembarked from the Singapore-Chennai-Mumbai flight, they were handed a bag of goodies and sweets. A stone's throw away, traditional musical instruments – the tutari and Nashik dhol – belted out a melodious welcome to the flyers who had just landed with 264 passengers and 11 crew members on board.
Initially, there was some confusion over which aircraft would land first. The Air India flight, it seemed, was running a bit late and an Emirates flight (Dubai-Mumbai) almost made it to the numero uno slot.
Like a senior official of Mumbai International Airport Limited admitted, "We were a bit confused as to which flight should be given the canon shower."
Passenger Uma Lal was elated. "I've been hearing about the new terminal for long but never imagined I'd be among the first lot to land here," she said, adding that the captain had informed passengers about it.
On hearing the announcement, everyone on board give a round of applause, said Darshana Dudhoria, another passenger.
By far, the show went off well but it had it share of problems. Like the absence of bins, lack of enough eateries outside the terminal and incoming passengers complaining about being forced to leave autorickshaws much before the ground level of the terminal.
