The repair work being carried out at the domestic airport every Tuesday has become a bone of contention between the airlines and the airport operator, Mumbai International Airport Limited (Mial).
With the risk of low visibility set to increase as winter takes hold, the two airlines — Jet Airways and Kingfisher — using the runway which gets partially closed, have requested Mial to suspend repairs and make the entire runway available for operations.
However, Mial does not see much merit in the idea, as it says such a move would end up affecting the summer schedules too.
Last week, weather played spoilsport as the visibility dropped to 1,800 meters, affecting short runway operations and flight schedules. “We want that if visibility is low this Tuesday too, Mial should make the entire runway available,” said the spokesperson for Kingfisher airlines.
Even Jet Airways has highlighted the need for full runway availability. “Last Monday, Jet wrote a letter to Mial that the visibility was low and the weather forecast for the next day also predicted low visibility. We even asked them to suspend the repair work, but they didn’t,” said an official from Jet Airways. After a spate of incidents, Go Air has stopped short runway operations on Tuesdays.
The repair of the runway intersection 09:27 and 14:32 began on October 27 and
is slated to be over only by February 15.
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