Watching aircraft land and lift off from Navi Mumbai today is both historic and deeply nostalgic for me. It closes a circle that began decades ago, when the idea of a second airport for Mumbai was still little more than a bold line on a planning map—and a risky newspaper story.

I still remember breaking the news in a Mumbai (then Bombay) tabloid that Navi Mumbai Airport takes off, after the Centre granted in-principle approval. At the time, the plan was modest and practical.

The original thinking was to locate the airport at Belapur and use it primarily to support exports from the APMC markets, which were shifting from Mumbai lock, stock and barrel on February 1, 1991. Ramprasad Kadam, then chairman of the APMC, had explained to me that air cargo was........

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