Airlines cancel flights to ease runway congestion

Mumbai: Various airlines have started cancelling flights to and from the city following the Airports Authority of India’s (AAI) directive to the Mumbai airport to ease runway congestion.
On Tuesday night, the ministry of civil aviation, under which the AAI comes, issued a statement saying “persistent congestion” was being caused at the Adani Group-run Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) “due to excessive slot distribution with limited time margins on behalf of the airport operator; non-adherence of the slots on behalf of the airlines and; non-scheduled operations during peak hours”.
The ministry had decided to step in owing to lack of corrective action, the statement added, noting that “MIAL should take immediate action to ensure that all airlines are on board with the prescribed restrictions.”
The impact of the ministry’s statement was immediate, with several airlines cancelling operations beginning Wednesday.
“As per directives to ease congestion at Mumbai airport, there have been certain cancellations from February 15 and affected passengers are being informed and provided with options to either avail a full refund, travel to an alternate sector or reschedule their flight,” said an Indigo spokesperson.
Akasa Air has cancelled flights between Mumbai and Bengaluru till March 30 as part of the decongestion effort. “Flight operations of airlines to/from Mumbai are expected to be impacted with guidelines being implemented to reduce runway congestion at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai. Considering this impact, we have to rationalise our network resulting in cancellation of flights QP 1374 (Mumbai to Bengaluru) and QP 1362 (Bengaluru to Mumbai) between February 15 and March 30,” said an Akasa Air spokesperson.
Vistara has decided to cancel eight flights per day between February 19 and February 30, said sources. Air India did not respond to requests for comment on the matter, while an Air India Express spokesperson said that they did not have much presence in Mumbai.
Earlier, on January 2, the AAI had asked the MIAL to restrict air traffic movement from 46 to 44 per hour during high intensity runway operations and from 44 to 42 during non-high intensity runway operations.