MUMBAI: Mumbai airport will not cut any international flight slots during the winter schedule, which runs from October 25 to the end of March, its operator said on Tuesday. Passengers booked on international flights to or from Mumbai airport this winter can breathe easy, as their flights will not be cancelled or moved to Navi Mumbai airport.The decision defused a standoff over the Mumbai airport operator’s plan to cut a third of international departures this winter to make room at Terminal 2 (T2) for domestic flights displaced by the redevelopment of Terminal 1 (T1), which was set to begin in mid-January next year. A Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) spokesperson said airlines had committed to supporting the redevelopment of T1, with “traffic balancing” to begin from the summer schedule. The summer schedule runs from around March 27 to October 31 next year, so some international flights scheduled to depart from or arrive at Mumbai airport during the summer could be cancelled or moved to Navi Mumbai airport.The decision not to disturb winter flights followed a meeting between Mumbai airport’s airline operators’ committee (AOC) and Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL), which operates Mumbai and Navi Mumbai airports. AAHL director Jeet Adani and its CEO, Arun Bansal, have assured the airline community of minimal disruption and full respect for historical slot allocations, the MIAL spokesperson said. “They have further given a commitment not to disturb any slots for the winter schedule,” the spokesperson added.According to MIAL, a joint working group will take two weeks to draw up an implementation plan for redeveloping the ageing T1 at Mumbai airport, which handles about 15 million domestic passengers per year. Regarding possible “traffic balancing” during the summer schedule, MIAL said it had assured full support to any airline that wanted to shift operations to Navi Mumbai airport. Both sides will meet again on October 28 and, until then, engage with each airline’s network and slot teams. There was no word on possible new timelines for the phased demolition of T1.The meeting followed intervention by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on October 3. The row began with MIAL’s October 1 letter to airlines, which proposed temporarily cutting 265 of the 770 weekly international departure slots from October 25. The cut would have affected 46 Indian and foreign carriers and eliminated about 38 international departures a day. It would have freed up space at Mumbai airport’s
