Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport is the world's busiest single-runway airport
The Mumbai international airport has shattered its own world record of handling most flight movements in 24 hours. The airport, which is the busiest single runway airport in the world, handled 1,003 flights on Tuesday.
The previous record was also held by the Mumbai airport which handled landing and departure of 980 flights in February this year.
London's Gatwick airport is the distant second on the list with over 800 flight movements per day.
The sudden upsurge in the number of flights operating from the Mumbai airport was attributed to a storm on Monday that led to delays and diversions. Many flights were spilled over to Tuesday increasing the number of flight movements at the airport.
The Mumbai International Airport Limited confirmed that it was the highest-ever traffic handled by the airport in a single day.
In 2017, the airport had handled 969 flights in a 24-hour period, which was also a world record for an airport operating only one runway at any given point of time.
The Mumbai airport has two runways but it can operate only one at a time. There are two crossing runways -09/27 (the main) and 14/32 (the secondary runway). The primary runway can handle 48 arrivals and departures per hour. The secondary runway can handle 35 flights per hour.
In 2017-2018, the airport handled 48.49 million passengers.
The passenger capacity at the Mumbai airport is expected to reach saturation point this year. A second airport to serve the city is being constructed in Navi Mumbai. The first flight from the Navi Mumbai is expected to take off next year.