Normalcy restored at Mumbai airport

MUMBAI: The Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) restored normalcy on Wednesday with very little impact on flight operations, a day after Mumbai witnessed heavy downpour.

Only Jet Airways cancelled 12 flights to minimise impact on their operations from and to the city. To start, a backlog of all flights that saw a 45-minute delay through Tuesday were cleared by 1am. Air India spokesperson Dhananjay Kumar said two Mumbai flights bound to Muscat and Singapore that could not take off on Tuesday flew at 11.30am and 2.30pm on Wednesday.

Officials from the Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd. (MIAL) said operations on Wednesday morning had a minor delay of up to 20 minutes, which by noon was down to 10 minutes. However, senior Airport Authority of India (AAI) officials termed the 10-minute delay as normal. Sources from the airport said there was no air traffic congestion, but the late arrival of crew members and other ground staff due to water logging in various parts of the city led to flights taking off beyond their scheduled time.

On Wednesday evening, Jet Airways tweeted stating that arrivals and departures were delayed up to an hour, and was likely to continue till 10.30pm. Harikrishnan S who was travelling to Chennai by Jet Airways said his flight was delayed by an hour and moved toward take-off at 7pm. All airlines issued an advisory of suspected delays in flight operations to and from the city airport through the day.

The Juhu aerodrome that has around 100 operations every day remained shut for the first half of the day. The aerodrome has five pumps to drain the accumulated water in the airfield. However, water did not recede in the morning owing to increased water level in the nullahs. “All our helicopters started flying from 1pm,” said Sanjay Kumar, general manager, western region, Pawan Hans General Manager.