Booking the Trip: Annual India Visit with Emirates and Air India
Review: Emirates Airline A380 Economy Los Angeles to Dubai
Review: Emirates Airline A380 Economy Dubai to Mumbai
Review: Pune Lohegaon Airport Terminal
Review: Air India A319-100 Economy Class Pune to Hyderabad
Review: Plaza Premium Lounge Hyderabad Domestic Terminal
Review: Air India A319-100 Business Class Hyderabad to Pune
Review: Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport Terminal 2 International
Review: Emirates Airline 777-300 Economy Mumbai to Dubai
Review: Dubai International Airport Terminal 3
Review: Emirates Airline A380 Economy Dubai to Los Angeles

YOUTUBE: Emirates: Los Angeles to Dubai
YOUTUBE: Emirates: Dubai to Mumbai
YOUTUBE: Air India: Pune to Hyderabad
YOUTUBE: Air India: Hyderabad to Pune
YOUTUBE: Emirates: Mumbai to Dubai
YOUTUBE: Emirates: Dubai to Los Angeles

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Hello everyone,  and thanks for the long wait in the continuation of the final portion of this trip. Sorry for the delay in posting, I had dengue fever for a week and was unable to do anything, but now to continue with a review of Mumbai’s gorgeous international terminal. I have been to Mumbai Airport several times in the past few years and even wrote about my British Airways flight out of Mumbai but I never formally reviewed the terminal here, so here’s one for the books.

Mumbai Airport’s T2 has a wide check-in area for the many airlines it serves internationally. But it has a single common area for the security checkpoint. Before security and immigration, here is some bookshop.

 

The entire terminal after security is the very very gorgeous part that I love stepping into every time. In fact, it’s my second favorite terminal in the world. But let’s talk about the features.

So security has segregated lines for men and women, which is the norm at Indian airports and it allows for more thorough “gender customized” security checks. After that, there are separate immigration lines for hajj travelers, India passport holders, dual citizenship (that’s me for US and India), and foreign passport holders, Visa, etc.

Once passing security, you are surrounded by the duty-free shops with all what you would find in any duty-free shop around the world at any airport: alcohol, chocolates, local snacks, perfumes, etc.

 

Once past duty-free, there are a lot of shops, but there is a cool model of the international terminal T2 in a glass panel for display.

Anyways, to the left there is a Mont Blanc storeas well as a tie kiosk right in front. One thing you’ll notice is how beautifully the terminal is designed. The lighting to the peacock feather theme to the Indian art. Everything was just so well executed by GVK.

To the right is a Swarovski shop, a Micael Kors, sunglasses, some apparel stores, a TUMI store, and another shop.

Here are some other shops you’ll walk by.

 

Alright so unlike most other airports where airlines have their own lounges, Mumbai has the GVK lounge where all first and business class passengers traveling on any airline in those classes are able to access the lounge. There is a separate First class section inside the lounge once you enter. While I’ve been here once on a first class ticket on Singapore Suites, I’ve used it many other times with my Star Alliance gold status, who also gets access to the lounge. I didn’t visit this time because I had no time and I wanted to cover the rest of the terminal.

Now from the main section of airside, the terminal branches off into 2 different sections. There are other shops in the middle section, but I’ll cover them in a bit. First, I went down the left branch to see what all there was over there. Here is a Starbucks before entering the left branch.

There was also a Cafe Coffee Day shop, which is basically the starbucks of India, and there was a Haagen Dazs store.

 

This part of the terminal is where all of the narrowbody aircraft leave from so its a relatively quiet part of the terminal. But as you can see, its still very aesthetic.

The end of the left branch was still finishing construction which is why this part is blocked off.

I was very surprised to see a Saudia A330 at the end of the terminal but I guess there are a few heavy body gates on the left branch.

Now from where we were, it was quite a walk to where our gate would be because we would have to walk all the way back to the central part of the terminal, then to the right branch, where all the heavy aircraft leave from.

Now arriving back to the central part of the terminal there was a bookstore.

 

Here is a look at the other shops and features that were available in the center.

There is also a food court in the central area with a bar, KFC, pizza hut, and some other Indian places as well to eat.

 

 

Behind the food court, there were also good views of the tarmac on this rainy monsoon evening.

I decided to get some sparkling water from the bar.

 

Now we are heading towards the right branch which was the busy part of the terminal. There is a Crossword store which is the India equivalent of Barnes and Nobles in the US.

There is also an electronics shop right next to that.

I’m not quite sure what the below shops are but they were there across the walk way as well.

Here is another clothing store.

 

Alright so this side is the GVK west lounge and also I believe this entrance was closer to the first class side of the lounge just for reference.

 

Alright so now we are walking down the right branch of the terminal towards our gate.

There are some tablets around the airport probably for browsing the internet or exploring airport amenities.

 

There are some other clothes shops and bag shops in the right branch.

After a while of walking, an escalator takes you down to the lower level of the departure area where all the heavy body planes leave from generally. As you can see its also more crowded.

At the end of the terminal, there were some very aesthetic shops with local goods.

Basically at the end of the terminal, there’s a cluster of duty free and food shops surrounded by many gates.

 

 

And finally my plane to Dubai.

 

Overall, I think the reason is very clear why this terminal is my 2nd favorite in the world. There is no bias because I am a Maharashtran myself. But I think the beauty of the terminal, design, availability, and variety of shops, a variety of food places, exceptional lounges, and overall wide amount of amenities can speak for themselves. Now if only flights would consistently leave on time that would make everything perfect. But overall, a great terminal.