Bad weather and congestion delay flights

“The secondary runway can accommodate only around 29 flights an hour,whereas the main runway can accommodate around 32-35 flights. This is resulting in cascading delays through out the day,” an airport official said.

Till now,the holding time for flights over Mumbai was around 40 minutes at night because of late night arrival congestion. Pilots say that flights have been holding over Mumbai,waiting for ATC clearance to land,during the day time as well.

But Mumbai airport officials said that on Tuesday,bad weather over Goa and a flight diversion from Iran was also responsible for adding on to the delays.

“An Iran Air flight IR 808 was diverted to Mumbai due to a technical snag. Local standby was declared at 10.50 am. The flight landed safely at 10.51 and local standby was withdrawn at 10.58 am,” said Mumbai airport spokesperson.

“Average delay in arrivals and departures during the day was around 50 minutes out of which air traffic congestion over Mumbai delayed flights by around 40 minutes. But bad weather over Goa also disrupted flight schedules,” he said.

Over the last two days,Air India flights from Delhi to Mumbai have also been delayed because of teething problems facing the airline at the new terminal T3.