MUMBAI: Mumbai airport air traffic congestion has been for long notorious for causing flight delays, but the airlines’ on-time performance data for August bucks that trend. For the first time in many years, the percentage of arrivals and departures delayed has fallen to below 20% at the city airport. Till recently, every one of two or 50% flights that arrived or departed from Mumbai airport were late.
Mumbai airport handled 9,831 departures and 9,826 arrivals in August, of which only 19% departures and 16% arrivals were delayed. In August 2017, 35% of arrivals and departures were delayed. Only five months ago, in February the scene was different, with 56% arrivals and departures delayed. Though the percentage of flight delays was lower than 56% in the other months, it had never fallen below 20% for many years.
A Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL) spokesperson attributed the improvement in airline on-time performance (OTP) to steps taken by their “airline monitoring team’’. “This team monitors turn-around activities of each flight and notes down time taken for each activity. Apart from sharing data with respective airlines, we conduct detailed analysis to carry out a ‘critical path analysis’ of the entire turnaround process. This helps airlines identify bottlenecks leading to delays to improve the OTP of flights,’’ said the spokesperson. For instance, after an aircraft lands, chokes are put on and only after that can the step ladder be attached and deboarding begin. But baggage offloading can start independent of stepladder attachment. So that has been identified as one area where a change can be made. “The team constantly looks out for ways to optimise operations. The airline monitoring team began work in January, but the critical path analysis began in May,’’ he added.
A senior official from Mumbai
air traffic control pointed out that the number of flight movements had gone down. In July, the airport handled 9,894 departures.
In August, it went down to 9,831, a fall of 0.64 %. The decrease has been attributed to lower charter aircraft movements and some airlines not operating all flights as scheduled.
Though minuscule, the dip has helped ease congestion. On June 5, the airport handled over 1,000 flights a day, a record of sorts for single-runway operations. But flight movements have fallen since. “It has come down to 950 movements a day. In fact, in the afternoon, congestion has eased to such a degree that arrivals come in to land without even a minute’s delay,’’ said the
air traffic controller.
The airport divides OTP into four time categories: 3-9am, 9-3pm, 3-11pm and 11-3am. Most flight delays occur in between 3pm-11pm. In February, 81% flights operated between 3pm-11pm were delayed.
Mumbai airport.
