Over 200 flights out of Mumbai International airport have been cancelled or re-scheduled after the main runway was taken up for scheduled maintenance work on Monday. The work will go on on Tuesday, too.

The airport will remain closed from 11am to 5pm on April 9 and 10 for pre-monsoon maintenance. Since the maintenance work is being carried out at the intersection of the two runways at the airport, no flights will be able to take off or land for 6 hours on both the days.

Flights cancelled

While Air India diverted four of its flights, it cancelled 34 flights on each of the days. The rescheduled flights include AI 611 (Mumbai- Jaipur) and AI 612 (Jaipur-Mumbai), AI 680 (Mumbai- Mangalore) and AI 696 (Varanasi- Mumbai). Similarly Jet Airways has rescheduled 17 international and 53 domestic flights and cancelled six international and 64 domestic flights.

IndiGo, the largest domestic carrier, declined to give details of the number of flights impacted. “Owing to partial closure of the Mumbai Airport, IndiGo had to reschedule some flights to manage its operations. It also resulted in few cancellations. We ensured that passengers were informed in advance and at the same time affected passengers were accommodated in alternate flights,” an IndiGo spokesperson said.

Airlines are offering free rescheduling of tickets as well as refund on the cancelled flights during this period.

However, the large disruption at India’s second busiest airport has led to an increase in prices for flights taking off and landing before 11 am or after 5pm.

“The closure also has a bearing on the airfare. We are seeing an average of 14 per cent increase in fares for flights taking off from Mumbai,” Balu Ramachandran, Head of Air and Distribution at Cleartrip, said.

“Coinciding with the peak summer season, travel plans of both business, as well as leisure travellers are likely to get affected.”

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