The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday issued an order permitting the Mumbai airport round-the-clock use of its cross-runways for departures and arrivals. However,airport officials say following it will not be as easy as it looks. Newsline spoke to a few officials who said that using runways 24X7 would definitely increase the departures from the airport but the hype relating to a decrease in congestion or preventing flight delays because of cross-runway operations appears totally out of place. Further,with the monsoon approaching and the airports secondary runway under repairs,officials said that using runways 24X7 would be extremely difficult at present. There are many issues as far as use of cross-runways is concerned. The primary one being the safety assessments over the use of cross-runways that are yet to receive DGCAs approval, said a senior airport official. Media has reported that the non-stop cross-runway operations would commence by Monday but operations cannot commence at least till June 3 as there is a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) on the secondary runway that is undergoing repairs, said another airport official. According to the order,if the airports visibility was 3000 metre or beyond,the runways could be used round-the-clock. With the separation distance remaining the same,there would be no difference in arrivals and with the possibility of more departures in an hour,more airlines will jump in to fill the already exhausted slots. It would only increase delays in take-off, said another airport official who did not wish to be named. Ultimately passengers will be paying the price for commercial considerations of airlines, he added. But,the bigger question is will Mumbai Air Traffic Control (ATC) be able to sustain such non-stop operations. Were short staffed. It is difficult to say whether we would be able to sustain continuous use of cross runways, said another senior official. He added,The reason why we have two runways is because wind speed and direction plays a major in deciding from which direction an aircraft should land. With 24X7 use of the cross-runways,scheduling of arrivals and departures would become a very complicated issue. The cross-runways are already in use for six hours a day. The use of the runways is basically an ATC function and we are prepared to make it operational 24X7 for them, said a spokesperson from the Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL).
