Mumbai as we all know is the gateway to India, whether by water or by air. But in coming months, passengers and airlines will have to suffer this winter discontent for flying in and out of Mumbai. With the constraint of Mumbai's main runway, the Airport Authority of India (AAI) has decided to close it for repairs for another 6 months on forth coming winters and the number of flights would be slashed. As a result, airlines have warned the price/fares for tickets would rise by up to 50%, starting from the month of September. But some travel portal sites are still offering cheapest airfares to any city in India.
Certainly, the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) of holding passengers (arriving and departing) would drop down which will double the fares on reduced capacity and gradually would occur higher demand. A lot of travel agency and travel portal sites are selling their tickets till next summer, but it is equally not decided which all airlines would be axed or reschedule, finding cheapest flights on internet would be harder and for travel agents too to sell off the tickets on coming months for Mumbai flights.
With the main runway closing down, with entire burden would be brought down to the second runaway of Mumbai and a huge challenge for the authority to how they would tackle the situation. Again, with the cross runaway at the CSIA airport, 32 flights movement can be handle but with the main runaway getting closure it would allow only 26 movements only for an hour.
Martin Wynn
