16 February 2026, Mumbai
The luxury landscape in Indian travel retail reached a new milestone this week as Boss partnered with Reliance Brands (RBL) to open its premium doors at the newly operational Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA). The launch represents a significant strategic play by RBL to capture high-intent spenders at what is rapidly becoming a premier aviation gateway. As NMIA transitions to 24-hour operations this month, scaling to 34 daily departures, the presence of global powerhouses like Boss underscores the airport’s shift from a mere transit point to a ‘passenger-to-product’ lifestyle destination.
Capturing the high-net-worth transit corridor
The new store is engineered for the modern ‘discerning traveler,’ offering a curated mix of the brand’s signature tailoring and athleisure-leaning ‘24/7 lifestyle’ collections. Industry data indicates that Indian travel retail is on a steep trajectory, projected to hit $3.21 billion by the end of 2026. With global airports now generating nearly 40 per cent of their revenue from non-aeronautical streams, Boss is positioning itself within NMIA’s 1,800-sq-m duty-free and luxury zones to tap into the burgeoning outbound leisure and business traffic.
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Strategic resilience and market premiumization
The expansion comes as the Hugo Boss Group navigates a ‘consolidation and realignment’ year globally under its Claim 5 Touchdown strategy. While the group anticipates more disciplined growth elsewhere, the Indian market remains a high-performance outlier. ‘Airport retail offers a unique, safe environment for high-end brands to engage with a captive, affluent audience, says a retail analyst. By focusing on flagship airport locations, Boss mitigates the traditional high-street challenges of space and visibility, instead leveraging the ‘dwell time’ of premium passengers to drive conversion in a high-margin environment.
Boss is the core brand of the German fashion house Hugo Boss specializing in premium business and leisure apparel. In India, the brand operates via a licensing agreement with Reliance Brands, targeting a mix of metropolitan hubs and high-traffic airports. Despite a global realignment phase in 2026 aimed at boosting free cash flow to €300 million, the brand continues to scale its presence in India’s luxury sector, which remains bolstered by a growing middle-income demographic.
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