The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) at Mumbai has approved 8% increase in weekly flight movements compared to summer schedule 2023, the airport informed in a release. The Northern Summer schedule starts on the last Sunday of March and is in effect until the last Saturday of October (unless the last Saturday lies on Oct 31). This year, the summer schedule starts on March 31 and ends on October 26.
The airport will enable 682 domestic movements and 269 international movements, an increase of 8% over the corresponding schedule in 2023.
New and more connectivity
The summer schedule will see an increase of services to Paris, Doha, Hanoi and Tashkent as per the airport. Vistara is deploying its dreamliner to Paris from Mumbai (5x weekly), complementing its existing service from Delhi. Akasa Air is launching its first international flights to Doha (4x weekly), from Mumbai starting March 28, 2024, while Uzbekistan Airlines recently restarted its service to Mumbai from Tashkent (2x weekly).
The surprise of the pack of Hanoi by Vistara, which the airline has not announced yet. What makes it interesting is that Hanoi will be a new destination from Vistara and the Air India group. Currently, IndiGo is the only Indian carrier to fly to Vietnam with the airline operating a daily service to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from Kolkata. VietJet and Vietnam Airlines operate to Mumbai from both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
CSMIA will experience 951 daily movements, an increase from approximately 882 in the previous summer schedule of 2023. With over 6,657 movements weekly, there will be an observed hike of over 8% in weekly flight operations in 2024 compared to 2023.
IndiGo leads
IndiGo will account for 1,255 weekly departures, while Air India and Vistara will contribute to 539 and 519 weekly departures respectively. The summer schedule will also introduce enhanced connectivity with additional flight frequencies to various destinations.
Among the notable increases, flights to Delhi will see a substantial rise with 27 additional weekly flights. Other key destinations with notable frequency additions include Srinagar with 28 additional weekly flights, Ayodhya with 14, and Kolkata with 9, respectively.
What happens to congestion?
In February, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) stepped in to curtail the schedule at CSMIA and reduce air traffic movements (ATM) to improve the On Time Performance (OTP). The airline had 975 approved ATMs for the Winter schedule and it will start with 951 now, a drop of 24 sequentially or 12 movements.
Winter 2023 saw Mumbai connected to 115 destinations. The airport had announced two new destinations – Almaty and Bali. The flights to Bali never began, while the ones to Almaty were cut mid-season. The airport is also losing connectivity to Kigali, Rwanda.
Considering there would be flights which will not operate and fair weather until monsoons, the OTP at Mumbai is likely to see an uptick which will have a positive impact on airlines’ OTP across the network.
You can now order Network Thoughts baggage tags and/or book marks!
Follow NetworkThoughts on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram and YouTube.
For advertising opportunities, get in touch via the Contact us page
NetworkThoughts 
route suspensions are hardly covered by anyone. Whereas launches get a lot of attention. The Mumbai Almaty discontinuation is very surprising. Didn’t know about it at all
LikeLike