Mumbai, Apr 9 (NIE): The main runway of the Mumbai International Airport will be shut for maintenance on Monday and Tuesday (April 9 and 10). The move will possibly cause flight delays. The Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA), in a statement released about one hour before the runway closed on Monday morning, said the main runway will be closed for six hours on both days, from 11 am to 5 pm, for pre-monsoon maintenance activities. Passengers are advised to contact their respective airlines to avoid confusion, the CSIA has said.

The closure of the main runway, 09/27, is likely to make travel inconvenient for travelers as the runway caters to many important flights of many air carriers.

The Mumbai airport is the main base of Jet Airways and a majority of its services, both domestic and international, are operated from here. “The main runway of the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) handled by GVK MIAL, will be non-operational on April 9 and 10, between 1100 hrs and 1700 hrs on account of pre-monsoon maintenance activities,” the Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) statement said.

The Mumbai airport, which is the second busiest in the country, has two crossing runways — 09/27 (the main) and 14/32 (the secondary runway). While the primary runway can handle up to 48 arrivals and departures per hour, the secondary runway has a capacity of 35 movements per hour. On an average, there are 970 flight arrivals and departures at the Mumbai airport every day.