Work at Mumbai airport puts airlines in the red

Mumbai: The inconvenience created by the infrastructure work at Mumbai airport is making the airlines lose money both on ground and in the air. Since the runway repair work started in October, the airlines have been severely affected. While the ground congestion is delaying departure of flights by an hour thereby affecting their on time performance (OTP), arriving flights held up in the air for 15-20 minutes during peak hours leads to burning of fuel up to Rs1 lakh a day.
The closure of secondary runway 14-32 and lack of enough taxiways have brought down the airlines' OTP in the past month.
"Especially in the evenings between 9.30pm to 11.30pm, the arriving flights have to hold up in the sky for 15-20 minutes. At times it extends to even 45 minutes. While a small aircraft like Airbus 320 burns fuel worth Rs40,000-Rs60,000 in 20 minutes, bigger aircrafts like Boeing 777 or 747 waste Rs1 lakh worth of fuel," said a senior commander from Jet Airways.
01/11/09 Naveeta Singh/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Airports Dec 2009, Indian Aviation- In General Dec 2009