Passengers travelling in and out of the Mumbai airport are likely to face significant delays in the coming days as the airport prepares to shut down its main runway for eight hours each day starting Tuesday. The partial shut-down ? which will be in place for 8 months ? is being undertaken for the construction of two new taxiways.
?The runway will be closed between 9 am and 5 pm for construction-related activity and will be out of bounds for the airlines,? confirmed a Mumbai Airport International spokesperson. The closure will force domestic airlines to use the much shorter second runway which could cause delays, a decrease in the number of flights and inevitably a hike in fares on the route.
During the closure period, flights will be operated from the 3,126-metre-long secondary runway. Most domestic flights, which operate during the daytime, will now land and fly out from the secondary runway. International flights, which mostly fly during the night, will however be allowed to land and depart from the main airstrip at night, as construction work will be carried out only during the day.
?The airlines were informed about 45 days ago about this plan and we don?t expect the closure to have any impact on their schedule,? the spokesperson added.
The diversion of traffic to the secondary runway, which is 322 metres shorter and has lesser taxiways than the main runway, will however hurt travel in and out of Mumbai, say analysts.
?The secondary runway is shorter, narrower, and has fewer taxiways. All this means slower turnaround time for aircraft, congestion in the air and land, and ultimately higher fuel cost, which is likely to be passed on to customers, especially in the peak tourist season from October-January,? said Amber Dubey, partner and head of Aerospace and Defence, KPMG India. ?It?s a sorry state of affairs that access to India?s financial capital will be limited to one short runway of 3,100 metres for eight long months. This shows all the more reason why airport facilities at Juhu and Navi Mumbai should have been developed at least five years back,? he added.
Airline officials confirmed that a lesser number of flights will operate in the sector in coming days, which would eventually lead to a rise in the air fares. ?There will certainly be some sort of a cut in the number of flights to Mumbai in the winter schedule,? said a senior Jet Airways official. ?The quantum of reductions in the flights will be decided after there is more clarity on the length of delays. But fewer flights will mean fares will go up slightly,? he added.
The operations at Juhu Airport, used by general aviation aircraft and helicopters, and which also houses the DGCA-backed Bombay Flying Club, will also be affected by the closure of the main runway as the secondary runway of the Mumbai airport diagonally cuts through its take-off and approach path. ?The operations of fixed-wings will be the most affected,? said KSL Narasimhan, Joint GM, ATC, Juhu Airport.
A fixed-wing aircraft, like Boeing 737, is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift caused by the vehicle?s forward airspeed and the shape of the wings.
The planes landing at the Juhu airport will now use the airstrip number 34 and those departing will use airstrip number 26. ?Since these runways are smaller, pilots will have to be excessively cautious while landing and taking off,? said Captain Mihir Deepak Bhagwati, president of Bombay Flying Club.