Mumbai airport to handle THESE many aircrafts after international flights resume: ATC Guild

“From an average of 950 aircraft movements per day before the pandemic in March 2020, the airport currently handles over 700 arrivals and departures daily,” said an official.

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Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (Mumbai Airport) being the country's second-largest airport is expected to handle more than 1,000 aircraft movements per day once regular international flight services resume, according to the Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) Guild. 

Currently, the traffic at Mumbai airport remains around 25 percent lower as compared to the pre-Covid period. On June 7, 2018, the airport handled 1,003 aircraft movements in 24 hours.

"From an average of 950 aircraft movements per day before the pandemic in March 2020, the airport currently handles over 700 arrivals and departures daily," said Saifullah, Regional Secretary of the ATC Guild (India) and Regional Vice President-South-West Asia, International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers' Association (IFATCA). India has the third-largest airspace in the world. Over 60 percent comprises oceanic airspace over the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Ocean.

"We have around 700 plus movements per day, both arrival and departures, at present, which is still 25 percent short of the aircraft movements we handled in the pre-pandemic times. A major chunk of this coming from the domestic sector as (a limited number of) international flights are taking place under the air bubble agreements," Saifullah said while briefing reporters on the occasion of 100 years of Air Traffic Control operations.

Stating that regular overseas flights are expected to resume soon, he said, "Obviously, we may then handle over 1,000 movements on a regular basis. "He said in the last 23 months, air traffic has seen ups and downs due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but with the recovery in traffic we have seen this time, it appears to us that it has crossed all those peaks (of the earlier Covid impact)."

In the wake of the pandemic, domestic passenger flights were suspended for two months from March 25, 2020, while international commercial flights continue to remain suspended since March 23, 2020. Currently, overseas flights are being operated to and from India under bilateral air bubble arrangements. 

With inputs from PTI