Strong winds caused by cyclone Vayu affected operations at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International airport (CSMIA) for a second day.

More than 500 flight operations were affected and the airport had to shift operations to the shorter and less efficient secondary runway, which led to further delays. Both departure and arrival flights were delayed for over 30 minutes. A total of 349 departing flights and 174 arriving flights were delayed till 7.30pm on Wednesday.

According to flightradar24, a Swedish internet-based service, which shows real-time commercial aircraft flight information on a map, during the day, departing flights had an average delay of 45 minutes and arrival flights had an average delay of around 25 minutes. An airport official said flight operations had to be switched to secondary runway 14-32 from morning due to strong headwinds. “As the secondary runway is less efficient than the main runway, flight operations were affected. Moreover, an Emirates Bangkok- Dubai flight had to be diverted to Mumbai due to a sick passenger on board. The main runway was specially made available for the flight to land, which further added to the delay time,” said the official.

Meanwhile, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) announced its Kandla and Keshod Airports in Gujarat, will resume normal flight operations from 12 midnight, June 13, from 6am (tomorrow) in Bhavnagar and from 10am at Diu and Porbandar. However, MIAL spokesperson said there were no significant delays.

First Published: Jun 14, 2019 11:02 IST