Expect flight delays in Mumbai airport

MUMBAI: Be prepared. For the next 30 days or so, flight schedules at Mumbai airport are likely to go out of kilter. Flights could be delayed for as long as two hours or even cancelled.

The reason: From 9am to 5pm for the next 30 days, the airport’s main runway 9-27 will remain closed to enable work to build rapid-exit taxiways. In this eight-hour duration, only the secondary runway 14-32 will be in operation.

Confirming this, SRR Rao, executive director (western region), Airports Authority of India, said, “We want to complete the work before the monsoon.”

But operating solely on the secondary runway is tough. While runway 9-27 can handle up to 35 takeoffs and landings an hour, 14-32 can do just 20.

But airlines are not rescheduling their flights. This means you will just have to learn to deal with delays. “We are not rescheduling flights as it hampers operations on other sectors,” said Warwick Brady, chief operating officer of Air Deccan.

In September 2005, the International Air Transport Association had warned about the dangers posed by the likely closure of runway 9-27. It also recommended that runway 14-32 be used only in emergencies.  

But an airport official said there is no option. “We are only making way for efficient operations on the runway. Airlines are buying larger aircraft. We need wide, rapid-exit taxiways.”

After these taxiways are built, movement on runway 9-27 is expected to increase to 40 per hour.