The Ministry of Civil Aviation has capped the number of flights from Delhi and Mumbai to decongest the two airports, the country's busiest, till the end of September.
"No new flights have been cleared from Delhi and Mumbai airports in the summer schedule," an official release stated.
The two airports, which are being upgraded, have been facing severe congestion as a result of which aircraft wait many minutes to take off or land.
Hourly movements at Delhi airport, which has two runways, has been frozen at 35 during simultaneous use of the runways and 30 during single-runway operations. Hourly movement at Mumbai airport, which effectively has one runway, has been frozen at 30.
At the same time, the dual-runway operation period at Delhi has been extended from nine to 10 hours between 8 am and 12 noon and between 4 pm and 10 pm.
The release added that both Delhi International Airport Ltd and Mumbai International Airport Ltd were also being advised to commission more rapid exit taxiways to allow for a more efficient clearance delivery system for departing aircraft to complete pre-flight checks before entering the runway and stand by for immediate take-off when cleared.
The Airports Authority of India has also allowed a departing aircraft to land or take off on an "active runway" that is, soon after another aircraft has confirmed that it has vacated the runway.
Earlier, aircraft had a lead waiting time after another aircraft had vacated the runway before they landed or took off.
Constant monitoring has also helped. "The hovering period in the sky for flights has now come down to less than half of what it was. An aircraft waiting for 30 minutes earlier has to now wait for 10 minutes," said G S Dhillon, executive vice-president, flight operations, Spice Jet. That is, he says, the position in Delhi and Mumbai, the country's busiest airports.
Even Air Deccan, the largest low-cost carrier, agrees. "It is a fact that air traffic congestion at Delhi and Mumbai airports has eased considerably. The measures adopted to reduce congestion are definitely good for the short term," a company spokeperson said.
However Kingfisher Airlines promoter Vijay Mallya says that there is no improvement. "There is hardly any improvement in congestion, I had to wait for 30 minutes just to take off from Mumbai today. I see not change," he said.
Many airline companies say that they are not being given higher priority over chartered carriers which add to the congestion problem.
"Our flights are often delayed due to chartered flights which are given slots during peak hours. No non-scheduled aircraft should be allowed to fly during peak hours, but the government has not tackled this issue at all," said an official with a leading airline company.
