Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (Marathi: ) (IATA: BOM, ICAO: VABB), formerly Sahar International Airport, is the primary international airport in Mumbai, India, and is named after the 17th century Maratha Emperor, Chhatrapati Shivaji Bhosle. The Airport's IATA code - "BOM" , is derived from Bombay, Mumbai's former name.

The airport is South Asia's second busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic^[4][5] and the busiest airport in India in terms of international passenger traffic and the second busiest in terms of overall passenger traffic^[6]. The airport has five operating terminals spread over an operational area of 1,450 acres (5.9 km²) and is India's and South Asia's largest and most important airline hub; it handled more than 29.9 million passengers and 670,235 tonnes of cargo in 20102011^[7][8].

Along with Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, it handles more than half of the air traffic in South Asia^[9][10][11]. In 2010, the airport was ranked the 30th busiest airport in the world in terms of cargo with 671,238 tonnes handled.

The airport is one amongst a few airports in the world to be located within the city's municipal limits and has almost reached its saturation point and a modernisation project is currently ongoing. As part of said project, in February 2006, Mumbai International Airport Limited, a consortium of GVK Industries Ltd, Airports Company South Africa and Bidvest^[12] was appointed to carry out the modernisation of Mumbai Airport.

History

The Juhu Aerodrome functioned as Mumbai's sole airport until 1942. Due to operational constraints imposed by its low-level location and proximity to the Arabian Sea coastline making it vulnerable during the monsoon season, a move further inland became necessary.

In 1942 a bigger airfield was set up at Santa Cruz, which was also home to several RAF Squadrons from 1942 to 1947 during World War II ^[13]. The apron existed on the south side of runway 09/27, and the area, referred to today as the "Old Airport", houses, among others, maintenance hangars of Air India, Air Works India and MIAL's General Aviation Terminal.

In its first year, it handled six civilian services a day. Traffic at the airport increased after Karachi was partitioned to Pakistan and as many as 40 daily internal and foreign services operated by 1949^[14].

In 1946 the RAF began the process of handing over the airfield to the civil aviation authorities in India^[15].

By June 1948, a new terminal building and apron had been constructed across the runway 09/27, which was used by Air India for its maiden international flight to London^[16]. Named after the neighbourhood in which it stood and initially under the aegis of the Public Works Department, the new airport was subsequently run by the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Its name remained Santa Cruz Airport until the new international terminal at nearby Sahar became operational in 1981^[17]. After a major fire gutted the Santa Cruz terminal in 1979, a temporary departure extension or "Gulf Terminal" became functional in October that year. Prior to the fire, plans were already underway by the mid-1970s to construct a new international terminal since Santa Cruz, despite several extensions, had insufficent operational capacity. Even today, the domestic terminals 1-A and 1-B are still commonly referred to as Santa Cruz.

Structure

The airport consists of two passenger terminals: Terminal 1 at Santacruz for domestic flights and Terminal 2 at Sahar for international flights. These terminals use the same airside facilities but are physically separated on the cityside, requiring a 1520 minute (airside) drive between them. MIAL operates coach shuttle services between the domestic and international terminals for transit passengers.

Mumbai has two intersecting runways designated 09/27 and 14/32.

• Runway 09/27 is the main runway and is connected to a full-length parallel taxiway to its north by 9 taxiways including two rapid exit taxiways. It is 3,445 m (11,302 ft)^[18] long (previously designated as 3,489 m (11,447 ft)) and intersects the secondary runway south of the terminal buildings.
• Runway 14/32 has six taxiways including two rapid exit taxiways that connect to a parallel taxiway running along its eastern flank. It is 2,925 metres (9,596 ft)^[18] long and runs between Terminals 1 and 2.

Both runways have been upgraded to code F, which means they can accommodate larger aircraft like the Airbus A380.

Instrument landing system (ILS) approaches are available on all runways, with runway 27 having CAT2 capabilities. The ILS on 27 starts at 3,700 ft (1,100 m) and is 10.5 nautical miles (19.4 km) long with a glide slope path of 3.3°. With regard to (truncated) use of both runways, only 11,303 ft (3,445 m) is designated usable at 09/27 and 9,596 ft (2,925 m) at 14/32, especially for landings. Due to maintenance runway 09/27 is unavailable for operations between 07150915Z on Mondays and Saturdays, and between 07150845Z on Wednesdays.

From 1 January 2006, both runways were operated simultaneously for three hours in the morning from 0530 to 0830. On average, about 50 flights of smaller aircraft have taken off daily from 14/32 in this time period. Since the experiment was deemed successful it has recently been decided to carry out simultaneous use in the evenings too. It is not clear if this will be for two hours or three hours. A rate of 25 departures per hour is being targeted in the evening slot. The problems with utilising 14/32 are: (i) Mumbai's controversial new control tower erected in 1996 and some 72 m (236 ft) tall penetrates transitional obstacle limitation surfaces by over 50 m (160 ft) for instrument approaches, and in excess of 40 m (130 ft) for visuals. Approach minima at both 14 and 32 ends are higher (based on best approach aid) and are as follows: runway 14 (DA 580 ft (180 m)), runway 32 (MDA 1,440 ft (440 m)) compared to runway 09 (DA 270 ft (82 m)) or runway 27 (DA 230 ft (70 m)), meaning that there is a higher probability of missed approaches and diversions in inclement weather (ii) a hillock, Trombay Hill, lies 4.5 nmi (8.3 km) away from the 32 end, an approach also questioned recently by security agencies because the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) nuclear complex at Trombay (Anushakti Nagar) lies within its flight path.

Expansion

In January 2006, the consortium won the bid to manage and operate CSIA. To accomplish this task, Mumbai International Airport Private Limited (MIAL), a Joint Venture between the GVK led consortium(74%) and the Airports Authority of India (26%) was formed^[19]. Since then, MIAL has made several improvements in aestetics, design and passenger conveniences.

The graphic design and ambientation of the airport has mainly been created by Argentinan design studio Steinbranding. Landscape improvements were designed by Design Cell, a firm specialising in landscape architecture.

The Airport's expansion plans, however, have been repeatedly thwarted by slums encroaching onto the airport area.^[20]. According to a report submitted by GVK to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the airport's total operating area covers 936 acres (3.79 km²) of which actual encroached land is 262 acres (1.06 km²) against a government estimate of 147 acres (0.59 km²). Land subject to legal proceedings covers an area of 34 acres (140,000 m²).

Master plan

In October 2006, MIAL unveiled the master plan^[21] for CSIA, which has been designed to expand and upgrade the infrastructure to cater for 40 million passengers per year and one million metric tonnes of cargo per year by 2010^[22]. The separate international and domestic terminals will be merged into one terminal building at the current international building and the current domestic terminal will be converted to a dedicated cargo terminal. MIAL has also incorporated a parallel runway as part of the master plan but there are some obstructions to this part of the which includes land acquisition and rehabilitation of slums as well as relocation of a number of airport facilities^[23].

L&T ECCD have been awarded the contract to expand Terminal 1 and to construct the new Terminal 2m which is designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM). The terminal is X-shaped and has a total floor area of 4.3 million square metres across four floors. The new terminal will have around 700,000 sq ft of retail space and lounges and travel services and parking space for over 5,000 cars^[24].

The implementation will be undertaken in two stages:

• The Interim Phase was the implementation of several immediate measures. These were completed in 2008 and included:
  • Refurbishment and construction at Terminal 2
  • Revamp of Terminal 1A to upgrade and expand facilities such as check-in counters and boarding bridges
  • Setting-up of temporary cargo facilities to add capacity
  • Upgrading of the airside runway facilities such as rapid exit taxiways to increase runway capacity to cater to traffic growth
  • Enhancing city-side facilities such as multi-level car parks

• Phase One (to be completed by mid-2012) included:
  • Creation of a brand new terminal building (T2) at Sahar catering to both international and domestic operations
  • Construction of a dedicated link from the Western Express Highway to T2 at Sahar
  • Enhancement of the airside facilities by shifting the air traffic control tower and construction of a parallel taxiway for runway 14/32.
  • Development of infrastructure on the city-side
  • Building new cargo facilities
  • Construction of Terminal 1C

Revamped CSIA

New taxiways have been developed to reduce the runway occupancy time by aircraft after landing. The airport has five rapid exit taxiways. By 2013, 11 rapid exit taxiways will be constructed.^[26] MIAL is undertaking the installation of a centralised data system which will provide information about domestic as well as international flights to all display devices at both terminals instead of just one or the other as at present. There are plans to extend the scope of the system to the air traffic control (ATC) and apron control areas, the airport website and even to leading hotel chains. A centralised call centre to provide flight details is also envisaged.

A Wi-Fi service is available free of charge throughout the airport.^[27]

Project facts

• Cost: 9,800 crore (US$2.16 billion)
• Airport area: 800 hectares ^[28]
• Completion Year: 2014
• Project Area: 4,843,759 ft (1,476,378 m)
• Building Height: 45 m
• Number of Storeys: 4

Parallel runway

A second parallel runway was being considered to meet objections raised by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests against the proposed location of the Navi Mumbai International Airport near Kopra Panvel.

Two alternatives that were mooted by MIAL in the master plan^[21] for CSIA:

1. An east-west runway parallel to the existing runway 09/27 on the southern side. With a length of 12,500 ft (3,800 m), this runway will accommodate new-generation aircraft, and also be sufficiently distant (more than 800 feet (240 m) apart) from the existing runway; it would necessitate the relocation of Air-India's hangars and maintenance facilities.
2. A second runway parallel to the current cross runway 14/32 on the northern side, between the international terminal to the north and the Kalina campus university grounds. The airport's flight kitchens and the Sahar police station would have to be moved and the area to which they could be relocated is occupied by thousands of slum-dwellers.

The parallel runway remains an active part of the plan but meantime the cross runways are being upgraded as much as possible^[23].

Terminals, airlines and destinations

The airport consists of four terminals:

Terminal 1

Terminal 1 comprises of three adjacent structures, designated 1A, 1B and 1C.

• Terminal 1-A opened in April 1992, and is used by Air India and Kingfisher Airlines.
• Terminal 1-B was the original Santacruz building used for international and domestic operations. It was refurbished in 1998, and is used by all of the other domestic airlines.
• Terminal 1-C opened in April 2010 and serves as a boarding-only facility for all airlines. The terminal has 6 passenger boarding bridges and allows connectivity between terminals 1A and 1B.

Terminal 2

Designed by Aéroports de Paris and opened in January 1981, Terminal 2 was built in phases as 2-A, 2-B, and 2-C.

• 2-A served most international carriers. Its boarding gates 3 to 8 were the first aerobridges installed in the subcontinent. It has been decommissioned and was demolished in January 2009^[29] to make way for the new T2 structure.
• 2-B served Air India and carriers handled by Air India between September 1986 and October 1999 and was decommissioned when 2-C opened. An extensively refurbished 2-B is now operational once again, following the demolition of 2A
• 2-C, inaugurated in October 1999, was originally exclusively for Air India, Air-India Express and those carriers whose ground operations were handled by Air India.

The Terminal 2 complex is under re-development and will handle all passenger traffic (international and domestic) when completed.

General Aviation Terminal

CSIA's GA Terminal for private and non-scheduled flight operators (NSOPs) is located at Kalina on the south-west side of the airfield. The terminal was approved for international operations in April 2011, making CSIA the first airport in India to have a self contained terminal for handling round the clock domestic and international flight operations for private and NSOPs. The terminal offers facilities for passengers departing and arriving on private aircraft and business jets. The terminal has two exclusive lounges, two conference halls, two crew rest rooms and a cafe bar^[30].

Cargo Terminal

The Air Cargo Complex, located west of the International Passenger Terminal (T2), has been in operation since 1977^[31]. The cargo apron is capable of handling five wide-bodied aircraft. In 2009-10, the airport handled 385,937 metric tones of International Cargo and 165,252 metric tones of Domestic Cargo^[32].

Air India (AI) and Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL) have been appointed as custodians of cargo by the Central Board of Excise and Customs at Mumbai. MIAL handles 33 airlines while AI handles 11. Apart from handling 65% of the international volumes at CSIA, MIAL also operates the Common User Domestic Cargo Facility since November 2009 handling Deccan 360, IndiGo and Kingfisher Airlines. The common user facility for exports is 7,500 m² and handles 11,000 tonnes per month. The Common User Express Terminal for couriers is operated by the Express Industry Council of India. Small shipments are handled via the International Passenger Terminal or the Domestic Passenger Terminal while larger express parcels are handled through the general cargo warehouses.

The Cargo Terminal has a Centre for Perishable Cargo(CPC) with an area of 1844 m² for perishable and temperature sensitive international export shipments, strong rooms of 115 m² for storage of valuable cargo and storage areas for dangerous goods in both import and export warehouses, dedicated Unaccompanied Baggage handling and clearance areas and 9 coloured X-ray cargo screening machines for export cargo^[33].

Passenger airlines

Cargo airlines

Statistics

Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport is the second-busiest airport in the Indian Subcontinent^[35], in terms of passengers carried per year and second-busiest in term of traffic movements^[36][37]. The airport can officially handle 36 flights per hour and intends to increase this to 48^[38].

The Mumbai-Delhi route was recently ranked by Official Airline Guide (OAG) as the seventh-busiest domestic route in the world, based on the number of flights per week. This airport, along with Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, is the primary international gateway to India and served by approximately 50 international airlines. It is the primary hub for Jet Airways and GoAir and also serves as a secondary hub for a few other airlines, including Air India, IndiGo, JetLite, Kingfisher Airlines and SpiceJet. International traffic peaks late in the night, whilst peak domestic traffic is before 10:00. Nevertheless, at least 45% of traffic flows between 10:00 and 18:30 daily.

In July 2010, the Airport was ranked fourth best in the world for having aerobridges, food courts, spas and salons^[39]. This airport, along with airports in Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, and Kolkata handles more than 50% of the passengers in India. In the eleven months between April 2006 and February 2007, it handled 180,000 landings and take-offs and over 20 million passengers, with a total of 13.56 million domestic air passengers and 6.73 million international passengers^{[dated info]}. It registered a 21.28% growth in passenger traffic over the previous year 200506, when the figure was 17.6 million passengers^{[40][dated info]}. In 2008, for the second year in a row, it was the world's most-delayed airport in terms of arrivals. Only 49.95% of arrivals were on time. About 58% of its late arrivals in 2008 were delayed by 30 minutes or more, although the delay in these arrivals is largely attributed to air congestion at a flight's origin^[41].

Airport services

Fixed base operators (FBO)

There are several fixed base operators at the airport and they include:

Caterers

• Ambassador's Sky Chef
• Chef Air
• Oberoi Flight Services
• Sky Gourmet
• TAJ-SATS

Fuellers

• Bharat Petroleum
• Hindustan Petroleum
• Indian Oil

Ground handlers

• Cambata Aviation
• Celebi-Nas
• NACIL

Accidents and incidents

1950s

• On 15 July 1953, a BOAC DH.106 Comet landed at the much smaller Juhu Aerodrome instead of Santacruz Airport (now Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport). The aircraft was flown out some nine days later.^[42]
• On 19 July 1959 Rani of Aera a Lockheed L-1049G Super Constellation (registered VT-DIN) carrying 46 people (39 passengers and 7 crew) approached Santacruz Airport in conditions of poor visibility due to rain. The captain was using an altimeter with the barometric pressure set at 29.92". An overshoot was delayed and the aircraft crashed and suffered damage beyond repair. There were no fatalities.

1960s

• On 28 May 1968, the pilot of a Garuda Indonesia Convair 990 mistook the much smaller Juhu Aerodrome for Santacruz Airport and tried to land his aircraft. It overshot the runway falling just short of the traffic road ahead and several residential buildings when its nose wheel got stuck in a ditch at the end of the runway. All passengers survived.

1970s

• On September 9, 1970, BOAC 775 was flying from the then Santacruz Airport to London Heathrow International airport with stopovers in Bahrain and Beirut. It was hijacked by PFLP hijackers after taking off from Bahrain and diverted to Dawson's Field.
• On 24 December 1972, Japan Airlines' Flight 472, operated by Douglas DC-8-53 landed at Juhu Aerodrome instead of Santacruz Airport. The aircraft overran the end of the runway and was damaged beyond economic repair.^[43]
• On 12 October 1976: a Sud Aviation SE 210 Caravelle had its right engine catch fire shortly after take off. The crew attempted to return, but fuel flow to the engine was not stopped. When the fire spread through the fuselage and the hydraulic system failed, the aircraft controls failed before landing. All six crew members and their 89 passengers were killed.
• On 1 January 1978 Air India Flight 855 a Boeing 747-237B crashed into the Arabian Sea after take off from Mumbai, killing all on board (213 persons; 190 passengers, 23 crew).
• On 4 August 1979: a Hawker Siddeley HS 748 aircraft was approaching Sahar International Airport (now Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport) at night and in poor weather when it flew into high terrain approximately 6 mi (9.7 km) from the airport, killing the four crew and their 41 passengers.

2000s

• On 4 September 2009, Air India Flight 829 a Boeing 747-437 flying on the Mumbai-Riyadh route caught fire at the Airport. The fire started in number one engine while the aircraft was taxing to Runway 27 for take-off. An emergency evacuation was carried out with no injuries among the 228 people (213 passengers and 15 crew) on board.^[44]
• On 10 November 2009, Kingfisher Airlines Flight 4124, operated by ATR 72-212A VT-KAC skidded off the runway after landing. The aircraft suffered substantial damage but all 46 passengers and crew escaped unharmed.^[45]

2010s

• On 2 September 2011, Turkish Airlines Flight TK-720, from Istanbul, skid of the runway N8 after landing. No injuries were reported but the incident has been called "Serious" by an official and probing has been ordered.^[46]

Awards and honours

• Fourth Best Airport in the World(15-20 Million Passengers Annually), by the Airport International Council, for aerobridges, fancy food courts, spas, and salons.^[39]
• Best Airport in India by the Airport International Council, a body of operators who collectively manage over 1,600 airports worldwide.^[8]
• Best Airport in Public-Private Partnership by the Air Passengers Association of India (APAI)^[47]
• Aeronautical Excellence Airport of the Year 2008 from Frost & Sullivan^[48]
• First Airport in India to Implement Self-Service Kiosks and CUTE (Common Use Terminal Equipment) check-in systems.^[49]

References

External links

• Mumbai International Airport Limited (Official website)
• Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport at Airports Authority of India web site
• Accident history for BOM at Aviation Safety Network