Passengers departing and arriving at the Mumbai Airport may face a tough time on Tuesday as both the main and secondary runways will remain shut for operations for six hours, from 11am to 5pm, for repair and maintenance work.
The Mumbai Airport had announced it would undertake runway maintenance and repair in two phases between the October and February-March period. The move is likely to affect as many as 300 flights per day during the period.
"Mumbai Airport runway will be closed from 1100 hours to 1700 hours IST. Please visit Air India website, app or contact call centre for details on rescheduled and cancelled flights," national carrier Air India informed its passengers through a tweet Monday.
The flights of others carriers at Mumbai Airport are also expected to be hit in a big way, a source said.
Due to the maintenance work, both the runways 09/27 and 14/32 will remain shut for operations between 11am and 5pm on October 23, Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) had said earlier on October 4.
In the second phase, the maintenance and repair work on the intersection of Mumbai Airport will be carried out between February 7 and March 30 (except on March 21) from 11am to 5pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
While the primary runway of Mumbai Airport can handle up to 50 arrivals and departures an hour against the declared capacity of 46, the secondary runway has a capacity of 35 flight movements an hour. Mumbai Airport handles about 1,000 flights a day on average.
