(This story originally appeared in on Mar 31, 2016)

NEW DELHI: Flying in and out of Mumbai is set to get expensive, because the city’s airport has run out of landing slots, threatening to create a demand-supply mismatch soon with the nation’s airline passenger traffic growing at 20 per cent annually.The Mumbai airport hasn’t allowed addition of any new flights from the summer schedule that began this month, airline executives said. This at a time when carriers announced an 18.6 per cent increase in flights on domestic routes during the summer schedule.With airlines following dynamic pricing , not enough services to meet passenger traffic in Mumbai could drive up the cost of air travel to India's commercial capital."Failure to add capacity from the Mumbai airport, which is India’s second largest airport, can badly impact the growth of the sector," said asenior airline executive, who didn’t want to be named.A spokesperson for the GVK-controlled Mumbai airport didn’t immediately comment.The Delhi airport, the nation’s busiest, and Mumbai together account for about 65 per cent of aircraft movements in the country.Paucity of land is affecting expansion. Efforts made by the government and the airport operator to rehabilitate slum dwellers around the airport to free up land are stuck due to various reasons.At present, Mumbai airport manages 50 aircraft movements each hour. There is not much room to improve it because the airport has only one runway.Travel industry executives are concerned about the airport saying no to new flights. They want the authorities to develop alternatives by shifting general aviation movements, such as operation of chartered flights, outside of the main airport."Not just the fares are going to increase, but a saturated Mumbai airport will adversely impact the growth in Indian aviation," said Ajay Prakash, former president of the Travel Agents' Federation of India