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Mumbai airport back to normal: Praful Patel
Our Bureau
New Delhi
,
Aug 1
WHILE assuring that the situation at Mumbai airport was back to normal, the Minister for Civil Aviation, Mr Praful Patel, today asked passengers to undertake only essential trips to the city.
"The airport is back to normal and the main runway is fully operational although visibility does become an issue from time to time. We have asked the domestic airlines to cut back on flights as there could be some problem in getting to the city from the airport," Mr Patel said.
Till 6 p.m. today, the airport had handled 225 flights, including 109 arrivals and 116 departures, the Minister said and added that only eight aircraft had been diverted.
The airport handles about 500 flights in a 24 hours cycle. With most airlines, including Jet Airways, cancelling more than 75 flights today, things are getting back to normal, officials said. In view of the prevailing conditions and fall in passenger demand, the Minister had yesterday asked the airlines to look at curtailing the number of flights they operate to Mumbai. Airline officials have also reported a fall in demand in seats to Mumbai in the last few days.
Asked about the extent of damage caused by the rains, Mr Patel said that it was still premature to gauge the exact quantum of damage. "The Airports Authority of India has taken the maximum hit in terms of equipment and other things," the Minister said. Due to incessant rain the water level was so high that a 10-foot high periphery wall around the airport was swept away, Mr Patel said.
Commenting on the operations of Air-India, the Minister said that all its services would be operational by tomorrow. In the past 24 hours, the airline has seen an aircraft over shoot the runway in Mumbai and another aircraft land under emergency conditions in Delhi.
"The incident at Mumbai was not as major as is being made. The aircraft landed normally. Preliminary investigations show that the aircraft overshot the runway by about 3 feet. But the aircraft did not zig-zag or skid. The largest airliner in the world can land at that runway," the Minister said.
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