Airfares surge as Mumbai Airport readies for 6-hour shutdowns from Feb 7
Flight movements from Mumbai Airport will be halted for six hours (11 am to 5 pm) every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday between February 7 and March 30 for runway repairs (Representational Image)
Amid Mumbai Airport’s impending closure for runway repairs, six hours per day for three days a week, airfares on several popular routes like Mumbai-Delhi have witnessed a massive surge in prices.
According to reports, airfares on Mumbai-Delhi route have witnessed a 30 percent rise as fewer flights will be operating out of the country’s busiest airports from tomorrow.
“The fares are up by upwards of 30 percent compared to the non-closure days. We would advise travellers to plan their travel well in advance to avoid paying these extremely high fares,” said Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C) Yatra, an online travel agency.
Flight movements will be halted for six hours from 11 am to 5 pm every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday between February 7 and March 30.
Overall, the services will be curtailed for 22 days, except on March 21 when the airport will remain open on account of Holi festival.
During the closure, the airport operator will carry out re-carpeting of the runways.
Although Mumbai airport has two runways, they intersect each other. As a result, only one can be used at any given time. Since the intersection also needs to be re-carpeted, both runways will be unavailable during the six-hour intervals.
Given that the airport handles close to 1,000 flights per day, authorities have said that around 240 flights will be cancelled every day and several others, including international ones, will be re-scheduled.
