While the main runway can accommodate upto 34 flight movements and at a stretch up to 40 movements an hour, the secondary runway can accommodate up to 28 movements an hour. The civil aviation ministry has slashed 12 domestic slots in this winter’s schedule. But the total air traffic movements a day at the airport including domestic, international and general aviation movements are expected to be around 750, which would be keep the secondary runway crowded, airport sources said.

This was reinforced by the Executive Director of Jet Airways, Saroj Dutta, last weekend, when he called Mumbai airport a nightmare for airlines and said that only operators knew what problems they faced on a daily basis. Dutta said that the next few months are expected to be extremely tough for airlines at the Mumbai airport with the main runway being closed.

However, for passengers, although there is a DGCA circular spelling out the criteria for airlines in compensating them for flight delays, it exempts airlines if the delay is due to Air Traffic Control congestion. Also, its implementation has been dependent only on the information provided by the airlines, says the Air Passenger Association of India (APAI).

“We have not heard of any case where passengers have been provided with compensation for flight delays,” said Milan Zatakia, vice president of APAI, which has over 100,000 members. Between August 15 and September 15, DGCA statistics shows that although around 46,000 passengers were delayed by over 2 hours, none of them were compensated for the delay by airlines.