A spokesperson for Emirates airline said its services to Mumbai are “operating as normal”, despite the closure of the airport’s main runway till 23.59 today.
Emirates, which has five daily flights from Dubai to Mumbai, managed to avoid being one of the many airlines forced to cancel flights to the Indian capital.
As many as 200 Mumbai-bound flights – both international and domestic – have been cancelled today, with the Mumbai airport issuing a NOTAM (notice to airmen) on non-availability of the
The main runway at Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport has been closed since a SpiceJet aircraft overshot the runway on Monday night after landing in heavy rains. The plane remains stuck on the runway, a SpiceJet spokesperson told Arabian Business.
The Air India official spokesperson told Arabian Business that their engineers were carrying out the work of removing the stuck SpiceJet aircraft from the runway at Mumbai.
“The operation is taking more time because the area where the aircraft is stuck has become mushy because of continuous rain and it has to be hardened first with rocks and stones. We are hopeful of removing the aircraft by evening (Wednesday) as we have the necessary technology and tool kit for it,” the AI spokesperson said.
Diversions
The closure of main runway at the Mumbai, coupled with heavy rains has led to cancellation or diversion of hundreds of flights to the city by both international and Indian carriers.
Air India said the airline has diverted most of its Mumbai-bound international flights to Delhi or Bangalore.
Air India operates narrow body aircraft in the Mumbai-Dubai sector that can land in the second runway at Mumbai airport. The airline spokesperson, however, could not confirm whether it will operate its flights to Dubai on Wednesday.
IndiGo said it has cancelled 30 flights for Wednesday so far and depending on the situation, there could be possibility for more cancellations during the day.
The airline said it was currently ‘rebasing our aircraft and rotations to the original schedule’, after the disruptions at the Mumbai airport.
Pilots briefing
India’s aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has, meanwhile, instructed airlines with directives regarding landing in adverse weather conditions.
“We have instructed heads of flight safety of the airlines to include in their safety briefing to pilots an express instruction to refrain from landing with unstabilised approached while experiencing adverse weather conditions,” DGCA said in a statement Tuesday evening.
The new air safety circular was issued after the aviation regulator called a meeting of airline CEOs on Tuesday in the wake of a series of incidents of aircraft overshooting the runway, skidding and hard landing at some of the Indian airports recently.
Follow us on
