Mumbai:
Beginning Monday, main runway 09-27 of Mumbai airport will be closed for repairs for eight hours. There will be minor flight delays averaging around 30 minutes. Thankfully, passengers won't be inconvenienced as the secondary runway 14-32 is fully functional for operations.
On Monday, 09-27 was under repairs from 9am to 5pm. A spokesperson from Mumbai International Airport Private Ltd (MIAL) said, "There was an average delay of nine minutes for arrivals and 16 minutes for flight departures." The runway will be shut every day from 9am to 5pm for repairs till June 2011.
However, airport sources attribute the delays to the shutting of taxiway N for repairs. "As taxiway N is undergoing repairs, another taxiway L which runs parallel to N was in use. But this taxiway is used for arriving and departing flights, creating congestion and minor delays," he said. It is undergoing repairs to make it code F compliant, so that larger aircraft like Airbus 380 can also use it.
As the flights were delayed by 30 minutes, the directorate general of civil aviation's (DGCA) rule of making airlines stick to the slot or miss it went for a toss. "Due to the repair works, it became almost difficult to stick to the allotted slots," said an airline official, on condition of anonymity.
When the runway repair work was in progress, a Gulf Air flight, GF 064 that landed on the runway 14-32 had a tyre burst, after it landed at 4.15pm. The aircraft was towed away into the bay, although there was no impact on operations.
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