225 flights at Mumbai airport to be cancelled on Tuesday

The airport was closed on Monday between 11am and 5pm for the maintenance work on the intersection of the main (09) and secondary (27) runway.

Around 225 flights will be cancelled on Tuesday as the runways at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) will continue to remain shut for six hours for pre-monsoon maintenance work, said the Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL).

The airport was closed on Monday between 11am and 5pm for the maintenance work on the intersection of the main (09) and secondary (27) runway. Around 225 flights were cancelled on Monday as well. MIAL spokesperson said, “The main runway of the CSIA, handled by GVK MIAL, will be not be operational on April 9 and 10 due to pre-monsoon maintenance activities.”

Airlines asked passengers to check the revised schedule before leaving home. Airports Authority of India (AAI) said an average delay of 15 minutes was seen at the airport after 5pm. “There will be no cascading effect of Monday runway closure on Tuesday,” said a senior AAI official.

Air India and Jet Airways took to Twitter to inform their passengers about changes in flight schedules. Air India announced four of its flights would be rescheduled and stated 34 of its flights would be cancelled on both days. The rescheduled flights include AI 611 (Mumbai- Jaipur) and AI 612 (Jaipur-Mumbai), AI 680 (Mumbai-Mangalore) and AI 696 (Varanasi-Mumbai).

Jet Airways rescheduled 17 international and 53 domestic flights and cancelled six international and 64 domestic flights.

GoAir had to cancel seven of its flights. SpiceJet spokesperson said 18 of its flights were cancelled. Senior airport officials said 15% of Indigo’s daily flights were cancelled on Monday.

“There is negligible impact of the closure on our operations,” said the Vistara spokesperson. “Mumbai, which is one of the busiest airports in the country, will see a drop in passenger traffic,” said Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C) Yatra.com.

Aloke Bajpai, ixigo chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder, said, “Even with only a few flights operating, 4% of the inbound flights have been affected. Additionally 8% of the outbound flights were delayed.”