Mumbai airport to remain shut for six hours on 22 days between February-March
Flight operations will be halted from 11 am to 5 pm every Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday between February 7-March 30, which may lead to higher airfares on key routes (Representational Image. Courtesy: philstar.com)
Flyers may have to shell out significantly more to travel to and from Mumbai as the city’s only airport will remain shut for a period of six hours on 22 days during the months of February and March.
According to reports, 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.
Also, given that Mumbai airport – among country’s busiest airports – handles close to 1,000 flights every day, the shutdown is expected to affect ticket costs.
Experts say that the tickets for key routes like Delhi, Bengaluru & Hyderabad may shoot by up to 80 percent, while last minute fares may go up by approximately 30 percent.
