Mumbai airport’s landing system upgraded, smooth flights to resume

With the upgrading of the Instrument Landing System (ILS) on Mumbai airport’s main runway completed on Wednesday, air passengers can now look forward to a delay-free departure from or arrival in the city.

ILS is a standard International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) precision landing aid, used to provide guidance to aircraft while landing under normal or adverse weather conditions. Work of upgrading the ILS of main runway commenced on May 17 and was originally scheduled to be carried on till June 5. However, looking at the prolonged flight delays, efforts were made to complete the work ahead of schedule. 

 The calibration work to check the upgraded work at Mumbai airport was completed on Wednesday and airport officials said that the upgraded ILS on the main runway, in all possibilities, will be available from Thursday evening.

 A senior airport official said that the results of calibration were satisfactory. “Some more ground readings are to be taken on Thursday. The ILS will therefore be made available either on Thursday evening or Friday.” Senior officials from the Airports Authority of India (AAI) will be making the ILS available if all ground tests made with a special flight are found to be satisfactory.

However, according to Flightradar 24, a Swedish internet-based service that shows real-time aircraft flight information on a map, the average delay in departing flights at Mumbai airport on Wednesday was around 45 minutes while arriving flights were delayed for around 20 minutes on an average. This led to delay in 54% of departing flights and 31% of arriving flights. 

Mumbai airport handles around 945 flights on an average per day and is the busiest single runway airport in the country.