india

Updated: Apr 20, 2019 06:38 IST

After Jet Airways suspended its operations on Wednesday, the number of flights operating from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) came down by around 250-280 flights. The airport, which witnessed an average of 950 flight movements before Wednesday, operated around 700 flights on an average on Thursday and Friday.

A senior Airports Authority of India (AAI) official said, “The air traffic is as low as 650-700 flight movements in 24 hours.” The airport witnessed passenger traffic of 48. 49 million during financial year 2017-18.

According to airport officials, the suspension of Jet’s services has also resulted in overcrowding at domestic terminal (T1), as those who had booked their flights for Jet, are now booking alternate flights on the low-cost carriers like IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir that operate from T1 at Santacruz.

With the flight operations coming down, passengers are also forced to shell out around ₹5,000 -10,000 for other metros. Usually, the tickets are available for ₹3,500-₹5,000. Harish Joshi booked a ticket to Mumbai from Delhi for Wednesday. He said, “I am being charged ₹8,000 for a one-way ticket. We ought to plan our travel in advance or be ready to shell out more.”

However, with SpiceJet and Indigo announcing additional flights from CSMIA from next week onwards, the air traffic is likely to soar again. While SpiceJet has announced 24 new flights (eight international and 16 domestic), IndiGo will operate around 18 new domestic flights from Mumbai.

Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director of SpiceJet said, “As we expand and grow, we are giving first preference to those who lost their jobs owing to the closure of Jet Airways. We will also induct a large number of planes in our fleet soon.”