Charters to change path for runway work

In the wake of the airport runway carpeting work, the Juhu aerodrome on Monday issued a change in its flight path notice to charter operators, asking them to fly in the south Mumbai direction. Mumbai airport will use its secondary runway from Tuesday onwards, instead of the primary one, on select days.

The carpeting work will get over by November and is set to hit 2,100 flights operating to and fro from Mumbai. In November, both the runways would remain shut for four hours twice a week. Since the Juhu and Mumbai runways are parallel to each other, the former is also set to change its path.

The official spokesperson of Mumbai International Airport Limited said, “From October 18 onwards, we are starting preservation of runway surface work. We will be switching to the secondary runway for four hours, i.e. from 12 pm to 4 pm, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. The operations would remain closed from 12 pm to 5 pm on Mondays and Thursdays between October 31 and November 28.”

With only south Mumbai-bound operations remaining active, private joy ride organisers said that people wishing to travel north — such as to Versova, Madh, Marve and Gorai beaches — would be disappointed.

A charter operator informed that with operations at Mumbai airport remaining shut for five hours from noon to 4 pm during the second phase (October 31 to November 28), both the main and the secondary runways would remain closed. This would allow the joy ride passengers to travel in both the directions.

Nandan Korgaonkar, the CEO of Yagna aviation, said, “Passengers are excited as joy rides will operate towards the south. We hope that due to Diwali celebrations, we will get a lot of bookings.”