Traffic jam in Kokata skies

Kolkata: If you are booked on a flight that is slated to either take off or touch down around 4 in the evening, brace for a longer haul. With nearly 30 flights vying for the airstrip to either fly or land between 3.30 pm and 4.30 pm, Kolkata airport is suddenly encountering congestion, an unthinkable situation till recently.
"The number of flight movements, comprising landings and takeoffs, has shot up from 230 a day to around 270 daily. Several of these flights have evening slots, leading to bunching of landings and takeoffs during the evenings. This is causing major congestion in the air as well as on the ground," a senior air traffic controller at Kolkata told TOI.
Flights that arrive in Kolkata during this peak evening hour have to hover over the city in queue for 10-20 minutes before the ATC gives an all-clear signal to land. Similarly, fights that are scheduled to take off around this hour have to wait their turn in queue for up to half an hour before the runway is clear for takeoff.
24/10/10 Subhro Niyogi/Times of India

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Categories: airports Oct 2010