Mumbai: Runway closure costs airlines

Manju V, TNN | Sep 4, 2011, 01.59AM IST

MUMBAI: With Mumbai airport's 11,300-ft long main runway closed for more than 48 hours, the airline industry is looking at losses running to crores of rupees. An unplanned runway closure at any airport is a nightmare for the industry, but the collateral damage and ensuing delays is magnified when the city airport's runway 09-27 is compromised. A top official with an airline said: "Considering that over 1,400 flights were scheduled to land or take-off from Mumbai airport in the last 48 hours, the losses that airlines would have incurred due to cancellations, rebookings, fuel burn, man-hours wasted, to name a few, goes up to crores." According to a senior commander, if the Turkish Airlines aircraft had gone off any other runway in the country, flight disruptions would not have been so severe.

While Delhi may be the busiest airport in India-handling around 870 flights every 24 hours-it has three runways, two of which are parallel to each other and the third, independent of the other two. "An accident on one of its runways will not hamper flight operations as much, as there are two other runways open for use," said the senior commander. But Mumbai, which is the second busiest airport in the country, handles 710 flights in a 24-hour-cycle with only two runways. Worse, these are cross-runways and the load is borne by the main runway, 09-27. The result? A cascading effect of delays that worsens with every passing hour, and mounting losses.

It's little wonder, then, that airlines are still calculating their losses. "The Bangalore-Mumbai-Bangalore flight I operated used 1.9 tonnes of extra fuel on Friday night as we spent an hour holding over Pune before we could land in Mumbai. While departing from Mumbai, we had to wait for 40 minutes on ground," said a commander. That is about Rs 1.46 lakh spent extra on fuel to do a flight, which generally takes only three hours to and fro. "Also, in the event of a disruption in Mumbai, you'll find a greater number of planes (and hence pilots) either waiting on ground or circling to land than any other airport. This increases the total man-hour losses for airlines," he added.

The secondary runway does not have the infrastructure to take the load off the main runway. For one, it has an air traffic control tower in its vicinity, making it a substandard runway by International Civil Aviation Organisation standards, because of which it is shunned by a few international carriers such as Singapore Airlines. "So when the main runway of Mumbai airport closes, it's a nightmare for airlines, pilots and passengers. No other airport in India is capable of causing so much trouble," said the airline official.

Source:  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com