Mumbai airport was shut 40 minutes for operational reasons during morning peak hours,disrupting schedules to and out of the city. Departures were halted and several incoming flights told to hold over Mumbai airspace. Also,a Delhi-Mumbai Jet Airways flight was diverted to Ahmedabad. This brief,unscheduled closure,resulted in delays that continued several hours after operations had resumed. The closure happened after the airport safety team,during a routine inspection,found that an inset light at the intersection of the two runways had turned loose. As a safety precaution,this was taken up for urgent repair and neither runway was operational from 9.47 am to 10.27 am. Jet Airways flight 9W308 (Delhi-Mumbai) was diverted to Ahmedabad, said a Mumbai airport spokesperson. Only one flight was diverted; around 10 incoming flights were asked to hold, said M G Jhungare,general manager,Mumbai ATC. At the Mumbai airport,if there is a closure,then the effect is felt for many hours. In this case,it was not a scheduled closure, said an airport official. Mumbai airport has around 35 arrivals and departures every hour. Morning hours are especially congested. A delay in one morning aircraft causes a continuous delay in that aircrafts movement throughout the day, an official said. After operations resumed,the authorities decided not to continue with the main runway renovation work for Wednesday. Work has been on since November 1. Runway work was not carried out due to bad weather, the airport spokesperson said. At times of poor visibility,the main runway has to be used as it has better navigational aids. It was good fortune as otherwise disruption to flight schedules would have been more severe. The secondary runway can handle only limited number of flights as compared to the main runway. Continuing the main runway closure would have increased the air traffic congestion over the day, an airport official said.
