Mumbai, February 4: Mumbai airport smashed its own record by handling 980 arrivals in 24 hours and added to its reputation of being the busiest single-runway airport in the world. The record before this was of December 6, when the airport had landed 974 flights, confirmed a Mumbai International Airport Pvt Limited spokesperson. Though Mumbai holds the record of most number of flights in a day, the most efficient single- runway airport in the world record is still with Gatwick airport, UK's second largest airport.

According to statistics from UK's Airport Coordination Ltd, Gatwick single runway declared an aircraft handling capacity of 870 flight movements per day for summer 2018. But, unlike Mumbai airport, which is functional 24 hours a day, Gatwick handles most of its flights in the 19 hours between 5am and midnight because of night time restrictions in force since 1971, mentioned The Times of India in its report. The Gatwick airport also had its busiest December and ended 2017 as a record- breaking year with 45.6 million passengers, as per the news shared by their official twitter handle.

Gatwick single-runway's peak handling capacity is 55 air traffic movements (landings or take offs) an hour, while Mumbai has touched 52 movements an hour. However, unlike Mumbai, which rarely handles 52 movements an hour, Gatwick runway frequently handles 55 movements/hour daily during the peak hours between 6 am and 7.50 am; 10 am and 1.50 pm and 3pm and 7.50 pm. Mumbai, on the other hand, handles an average of around 48 movements in peak hours mentions The Times of India report.

 

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 05, 2018 11:34 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).