Morning, evening flights in demand

Mumbai: Learning a lesson from the four major Tuesday fiascos at the city airport, Mumbaikars are looking to travel early in the morning or late in the evening from this Tuesday. As a result travel agents are seeing more bookings for morning and evening flights. This has also led to an increase in air fares for this Tuesday, as these are peak hours.
Rakesh Sharma, 36, a financial consultant from Lokhandwala Complex in Andheri (West), is booked on a Kingfisher flight that departs at 6:05pm for Delhi on November 17. "I have a client meeting in Delhi at noon," he said. "But these days travelling in the afternoon on Tuesdays to or from Mumbai is not safe. Earlier I would go by a 10am flight for an afternoon meeting."
On Tuesday, November 10, a Kingfisher Airlines aircraft skidded off the short runway 27A when it rained. Just four minutes before that, an Air India Goa-Mumbai flight skidded on the runway due to aqua-plaining (the formation of a thin layer of water) and damaged two runway lights. On November 3, a GoAir flight had almost crash-landed into construction equipment on the runway twice, but the Mumbai air traffic control intervened and asked the pilot to launch a go-around.
17/11/09 Naveeta Singh/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Airports Nov 2009