Rain disrupts flight schedules

The rains on Wednesday threw the flight schedules at Mumbai airport off gear. While delays ranged between 15 minutes and two hours, some airlines were forced to cancel and combine flights in the evening.

On November 11, till 1pm, departures were delayed by an hour, while arrivals were delayed by 15 minutes as the visibility was 1,900 meters. However, as it started raining heavily, departures were further delayed by two hours, though the arrivals were on time.

“A Jet Airways Mumbai-Pune flight, 9W 2401, which departed at 12.42pm, returned back at 1.51pm as the weather was bad in Pune,” said an official from Mumbai International Airport Limited (Mial).

By 6pm, as the visibility improved to 3,300 meters, the delays were brought down to 15 minutes both for arrival and departure. However, certain airlines combined their flights.

For instance, Air India combined its IC 865 and IC 572 Delhi-Mumbai flights, as also the IC 664 and IC 572 Mumbai-Delhi flights. Jet Airways combined four of its flights, while three arrivals and two departures were cancelled. Kingfisher cancelled its IT 4140 Mumbai-Aurangabad and IT 4139 Aurangabad-Mumbai flights.