In response to complaints about congestion, the government orders Mumbai Airport to reduce flights and business aircraft movements

In response to complaints about congestion, the government orders Mumbai Airport to reduce flights and business aircraft movements

To ease traffic and boost on-time departures, Mumbai Airport has been instructed to scale down scheduled flights and limit corporate jets during peak hours.

The government has instructed Mumbai Airport to decrease planned flights and limit the movement of business jets during peak hours in an attempt to lessen traffic and enhance on-time departures, according to Economic Times. The decision is anticipated to affect around 40 flights and cause operational disruptions on private aircraft that are regularly used by the nation's most prominent corporate firms.

Airports are required to lower aircraft movements from 46 to 44 during peak hours as well as from 44 to 42 during non-peak hours, according to the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which is in charge of air navigation services.

Sources informed the publication that this instruction would result in a decrease of about forty flights, with the greatest drop going to IndiGo at eighteen flights and the Air India group, which includes Vistara, at seventeen flights.

Business planes' extended ban prompts objections from corporations

Business jet operations now have an eight-hour curfew instead of the previous four-hour limit. Protests against the decision have come from powerful business entities such as Mahindra Group, JSW, and Reliance Industries.

The airport operator Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), controlled by the Adani Group, declined to comment, according to the article.

After expressing worry about the reduction in the airport's on-time departure performance, Jyotiraditya Scindia, the minister of civil aviation, decided to curtail flights and extend the curfew for business jets.

Senior air traffic controllers believe that airlines' overscheduling in response to a spike in demand for air travel is the primary cause of the delays. According to the research, government representatives emphasized that unplanned movement of government and commercial aircraft, as well as the availability of infrastructure, are major contributors to delays.

Effect on Flight Operations

Additional limits on business aircraft would seriously disrupt business aviation operations, affecting Mumbai's position as the nation's economic center, according to Rajesh Bali, MD of the Business Aircraft Operators Association, who made this statement to the newspaper.

Unexpected flight cancellations, according to airline network designers, would make it difficult to re-deploy aircraft and result in losses. The article states that they also anticipate paying the impacted passengers a significant amount in compensation.

The government's choice is indicative of the larger difficulties that airports throughout the nation are now facing as a result of the rise in air travel after COVID. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has mandated that when launching new flights, the number of passengers that can be processed through security checkpoints in an hour must be taken into account. This includes both local and international routes. ought to be carried out.