Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (BOM) traces its origins to a military airfield established at Santacruz in the 1930s. After the war, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation took over operations in 1946, and a new passenger terminal followed in 1958. By 1972, the International Airports Authority of India assumed control, and expansion work continued steadily through subsequent decades. The airport's IATA code, BOM, is a legacy of Bombay, the city's former name. The airport was renamed in 1999 to honor the 17th-century Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji, with the honorific "Maharaj" added in August 2018.

BOM serves Mumbai, the financial capital of India, and handles the country's second-highest passenger volume after Delhi. In the fiscal year April 2025 to March 2026, the airport recorded 55.29 million passengers across 331,756 aircraft movements. It operates two crossing runways, but only one is active at any given time, a constraint that makes BOM's throughput remarkable. In fiscal 2017, it briefly claimed the title of the world's busiest single-runway airport, handling an average of 837 flights per day, surpassing London Gatwick. The airport's peak single-day record is 980 aircraft movements on January 20, 2018.

The centerpiece of the modern campus is Terminal 2, inaugurated in January 2014 and opened for international operations on February 12, 2014. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and built at a cost of approximately $894 million, T2 spans 4.4 million square feet across 4 levels, with its roof inspired by the feathers of the peacock, India's national bird. The terminal has a 3-kilometre multi-storey Art Wall and capacity for 40 million passengers annually. International carriers including Emirates, Qatar Airways, Lufthansa, and Singapore Airlines operate at BOM, alongside a domestic hub for Air India. In December 2024, the airport became the first in India to achieve Level 5 customer experience accreditation from Airports Council International.