The Mumbai airport’s upgradation will open up a humungous 5.7 crore square feet or about 132 acres of real estate, exclusively for non-aeronautical purposes like retail, commercial and hospitality. The area is mainly around Sahar village, Kurla and Kalina.

According to a Cushman & Wakefield report on Airport Realty, the modernisation and upgradation of 47 airport projects across the country is expected to generate 78 million square feet (1,790 acres) for commercial purposes by 2015.

In Mumbai, about 28% (1.6 million square feet) of the 132 acres will be for retail, 50% or about 2.87 million square feet will be for hospitality and 22% (1.26 million square feet) will be reserved for office space. About 3,200 hotel rooms will come up in mainly five and four star hotels.

The Cushman & Wakefield report said nearly 50% of the estimated 78 million square feet of airport realty in India will be concentrated in just three cities of Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi. These three cities alone will receive about 14 million square feet of office space and about 10,200 hotel rooms. All over the country, roughly 27,525 hotel rooms will be generated from development of airports.

At a time when the global growth rate of the airport sector has been about 9% per annum, India has seen an average annual growth of 35% over a period of six years. Non-aeronautical revenues are expected to increase from 35% to 54% by 2015.

As airports have the advantage of 24-hour activity with very high people traffic, they are crucial locations for next generation retail and entertainment centers as well as business and hospitality zones.

Last year, a Mumbai developer was awarded the project to clear 276 acres of land under slums from around the Santa Cruz airport. A large chunk of this land will be freed for commercial and retail development.