Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA), often referred to as the country’s busiest, does not hold that title, for now, in terms of Air Traffic Movements (ATMs). It has lost that top spot to Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI).

Data provided by Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) and Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), the private operators of the country’s top two airports, shows that New Delhi has taken the lead on ATMs per day for the past four months. However, in terms of passenger movements, CSIA still occupies top spot.

For the period April to July 2008, CSIA recorded an average of 650 flight movements per day, while Delhi’s IGI Airport recorded 680 flights per day. In the same period last year, Mumbai saw 720 flight movements per day compared to 607 daily flight movements at IGI.

“At the Delhi airport, growth in traffic is seen as normal because additional slots for airlines are coming from Delhi, not from Mumbai because of Mumbai airport’s space constraints,” said a Delhi airport official not wishing to be named, adding that several Mumbai flights have been cancelled because airlines do not get their desired slots.

MIAL officials disagree on the reasons for Delhi airport overtaking Mumbai. “The yardstick for the business of airports is passenger movements, not flight movements,” a spokesperson said.

In the second quarter of 2008, passenger movement at CSIA stood at 66,07,764 a day compared to 62,23,515 passenger movements at the Delhi airport for the same period, six per cent difference. “Mumbai airport doesn’t have new slots for domestic carriers but per aircraft load factor is higher for CSIA,” said the spokesperson.

The downturn on ATMs in Mumbai is also being attributed to the ongoing lull in the aviation sector. “It’s primarily related to airlines trimming routes and trying to rationalise their capacity. It’s the first thing you do when you have a cost problem,” said Philip Cash, Airport Director of CSIA. Cash admitted that revenues could be affected too.

Airlines too agree that the current season has been marred by cutting of flights on account of spiralling fuel prices.

Also, airlines cutting flight schedules has affected CSIA hardest because Mumbai is at the epicenter of many airlines’ flight plans. “We’ve cut down on about 12 per cent of our total domestic flights. Because Mumbai is a major hub of ours, it will be affected more than other airports,” said Sudheer Raghavan, Chief Commercial Officer, Jet Airways.

Experts add that with Delhi’s parallel runways set to be joined by a third one soon, congestion at IGI will decrease significantly. “That’s where Delhi scores over Mumbai,” said Senior Civil Aviation Advisor, International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and a former Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), H S Khola. “Airports depend on traffic and airlines are guided by traffic. But if an airport has no space then there’s very little that can be done,” he added.