Mumbai Airport Sets Busiest Runway Record: 969 Daily Take-Offs, Landings

Mumbai International Airport set a record for the busiest single runway airport in a 24-hour period Friday, according to the Times of India, the airport handled 969 take-offs and landings.

The Mumbai metropolitan area is home to more than 21 million people and is the second largest metropolitan area in India. Despite its gigantic population Mumbai’s airport only operates as a single runway airport. Technically it has two rnways, but they crisscross, so only one can be operated by one at any given time. This quirk of technically being a single runway airport puts Mumbai in the same category as smaller cities and secondary airports to larger cities such as ones in San Diego and Xiamen, China.

Mumbai beat its own previous record of 935 arrivals and departures, according to an airport spokesperson. Mumbai regularly handles over 900 flights per day and hopes to eventually hit 1,000 flights. The record was helped set by unscheduled charter and private flights. These take-offs are banned during peak hours in the morning and evening — but a spike in off-peak take offs helped the Friday record.

The lack of free land in Mumbai coupled with an increased demand for air travel means that the airport has to squeeze the most use it can out of its one runway. The runway has a stated capacity of 46 flights per hour, but twice on Friday, the airport hit 50 flights in an hour. Between 5:30 am local time on Friday and 5:30 am on Saturday the airport averaged just over 40 flights an hour, which meant an arrival or departure every 90 seconds.

Indian air carriers flew around 100 million domestic passengers in 2016, but 97 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people have never been on a flight, according to Bloomberg Sunday.

India is slated to be the third largest flight market in the world by 2025, according to International Airport Review, meaning it will surpass the United Kingdom and settle in behind the U.S. and China.