IANS

Mumbai, Oct 27: Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) will be closed for six hours for the next 22 Tuesdays due to repair and reconstruction work on the runways, an airport official said.

The work -- at the intersection of the main runway and the alternative runway -- will be taken up between 12 noon and 6 p.m.

The CSIA has advised all airlines operating Tuesday afternoon to reschedule their incoming and outgoing flights to Mumbai accordingly, the official told IANS.

In the past, the Mumbai airport was closed for a prolonged period in 2003.

As per the latest information available, Jet and Kingfisher airlines are the only two airlines which operate between noon and 6 p.m. Tuesday and have accordingly rescheduled a few of their flights.

These include a few operations on the domestic sector and a couple of flights on the Mumbai-London and Mumbai-Singapore sectors.

However, since a part of the runway will be available for operations, smaller aircraft like ATRs, Boeing 737s, Airbus-319 and Airbus-320 will be able to take off and land, the official said.

The airport authorities are keeping their fingers crossed for emergencies -- no large aircraft will be able to operate while the work is on.

Meanwhile, all airline passengers travelling on Tuesdays have been instructed to strictly adhere to check-in timings as failure could result in a missed flight.

Airlines have also been advised to follow the timings of all incoming and outgoing services at least an hour before and after the (12-6 p.m.) closure timings to avoid diversions to other airports like Pune or Ahmedabad.

The airport authorities will make extra announcements and will inform passengers about the flight schedules and other help they may need, the official said.