Mumbai airport shut for 6 hours every Tuesday

MUMBAI: If you are catching a flight from Mumbai between 11am and 12noon on a Tuesday, be sure to arrive at least 75 minutes before the scheduled departure time.

The airport will witness complete closure for six hours as the intersection between two cross-runways will be shut for the next 22 Tuesdays from 12 noon to 6pm for repair and reconstruction work. This would not only mean that flight operations would be suspended during that time, but departing and arriving flights prior to the closure will have to stick strictly to schedule in order to avoid major delays or diversions to other airports.

At least 12 flights have been cancelled and four rescheduled at Mumbai international airport due to six-hour runway closure starting today.

Jet Airways & JetLite have decided to reschedule flights to and from Mumbai on Tuesdays.

Kingfisher that operates 31 domestic flights out of and into Mumbai has either changed flight timings or flight numbers.

In order to avoid last-minute hassles, passengers can arrive a little more than an hour earlier. The Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL) will be making additional announcements to facilitate quick check-in and to update flyers on the status of their flights.

While on other occasions, it is possible to roam around in the airport, on Tuesdays it is advised that passengers collect their boarding cards and move towards boarding gates as soon as their flight is announced. ‘‘The flight will not wait as in case of a delay, there would not be any way out for the next six hours. Hence, passengers will have to be careful and make sure that they board on time,’’ said an MIAL official.