If your flight is unable to arrive in Mumbai on time from September 8, you may be forced to land up in neighbouring Ahmedabad or Pune. Fliers coming in between 9.30pm pm and 11pm need to be especially careful.
In a bid to make airlines operate on time, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has announced that flights to Mumbai which cannot make it on time will be diverted. However, airlines said that the rule was thoughtless as it would only add to their expenses.
Mumbai airport is becoming a hot-bed for the beginning of disciplinary activity. Last month, the DGCA came up with a push-back rule to ensure timely departure.
“We decided to come up with this initiative (to divert flight) as we saw that there are flights which take off late from other airports and arrive in Mumbai late during peak hours (9.30pm to 11pm). This leads to congestion,” a DGCA official said.
The airlines were taken aback by the rules as they claimed that nothing had been communicated to them either by the DGCA or the airport operator. “We are yet to receive formal communication,” a spokesperson for Kingfisher airlines said.
According to the national carrier Air India (AI), this is a good move as it will lead to punctuality. “Due to the new push-back rule, departures of flights are on time,” an AI spokesperson said.
Private airlines found the rule illogical and thoughtless. “What if the flight takes off late from other airports due to consequential delay or due to operational problems over there? In such cases, if the flight gets diverted to other airports, who will bear the cost of the diversion?” a private airline official said.
“If we have to operate on such tight schedules, we will have to bring down aircraft utilisation and double the turnaround time. The current time for small planes is 20-35 minutes, and for bigger aircraft 40. This will definitely put airlines in the red,” another airline official said.
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