NATS to help decongest Mumbai Int'l airport

MUMBAI: The GVK-led consortium, which operates the Mumbai airport, has roped in UK-based air traffic services provider NATS to suggest ways to decongest the country's second busiest airport and increase its productivity and operational efficiency.

NATS, which also manages air navigation services at Heathrow, one of the world's busiest airport, has got the mandate to do a capacity enhancement study and make recommendations. The study is likely to be completed by April this year.

"The scope of work for NATS broadly includes determination of bottlenecks limiting airport capacity, suggestion of measures for capacity enhancement that can be achieved by improving air traffic procedures and by making changes to physical infrastructure at the airport," said Manish Kalghatgi, spokesperson, Mumbai International Airport.

A majority of Indian carriers, have, in the recent past revisited their expansion plans and re-routed network strategies because of the inability of the airport operator at Mumbai to provide slots for more flights from the city. These include national carrier Air India and country's largest airline by way of market share Jet Airways.

The capacity constraint issues have also forced the Indian regulator to freeze flights from Mumbai to 490, that is 223 less flights than its last year's winter schedule and much less than Delhi's 630 flights for this year. This has forced airlines increase fares on the sector during the peak season to abnormal levels.

Aviation experts say NATS' role will be pivotal in suggesting ways to lessen the vertical, horizontal and even lateral separation between aircraft which right now in the crowded airspace is a big challenge.