Steps being taken to overcome capacity constraints at Mumbai

Several measures are being taken to overcome capacity constraints at Mumbai airport that are results of unavoidable factors like single runway operations, higher traffic demand and non-adherence to allotted slots by various airline operators, the government said today.
The GVK Group-AAI joint venture-run Mumbai airport has taken several measures to overcome the capacity constraints while Delhi Airport did not have any such issue, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma told Rajya Sabha.
There are certain unavoidable reasons resulting in capacity constraints at Mumbai airport such as single runway operations, higher traffic demand against the declared capacity, and non-adherence to the allotted slots by various airline operators, he said.

Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) has taken several measures to avoid capacity constraints which include implementation of Airport Collaborative Decision Making System (A-CDM) as well as holding regular meeting with all stakeholders to reduce runway occupancy time (ROT) and enhancing runway utility, he said.
In a written reply, Sharma said that enhancement in aircraft movements from 30 to 50 per hour by the Air Traffic Control (ATC) was also one such measure to reduce ROT.
To a question whether the government had carried out any study to ascertain as to how much money was being wasted in a day by the airline companies towards hovering costs, the minister said no such study was conducted.

The cost of turnaround for the Indian carriers at the major airports of the country depends upon weight, size, destination of the aircraft, he said, adding "it is further up to the airline operators to individually assess the factors of their operational cost and adhere to the slots allotted to avoid increase in operational cost due to hovering cost, if any.