Runway repairs reach halfway mark

Battling bad weather and pressure from airlines to suspend runway repair work, the Mumbai airport operator completed 50 per cent of the repairs on its primary runway on Tuesday.

Battling bad weather and pressure from airlines to suspend runway repair work, the Mumbai airport operator completed 50 per cent of the repairs on its primary runway on Tuesday.

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For the past 11 Tuesdays, hundreds of workers have been working at a marathon pace on the area where the primary and secondary runways intersect each other.

“Half of the intersection patch has been scraped up to the foundation and re-laid,” said a Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), spokesperson. The airport is expected to wrap up the entire runway repair exercise by March 31.

Also, taxiway ‘November’ that runs parallel to the main runway is now available for operation. “It will cut down the taxiing time for flights,” said MG Jhungare, general manager, air traffic control, Mumbai.

Meanwhile, the airport has also completed 80 per cent repairs on the secondary runway, which has been shut for operations since October 1. This runway would be available for use by the end of January.

The six-hour partial shutdown on Tuesday saw 58 flights taking off and landing on the curtailed runway. At noon, the air traffic control shut operations and handed the runway over to MIAL to move in men and equipment for repairs. The partial runway operations began at 12.56 pm and lasted for five hours.

No diversions or cancellations were reported.