265 international flights to be cancelled from Oct 25, says Mumbai Airport

46 airlines affected; IndiGo faces 74 slot reductions, Air India 33; airlines given until October 6 to identify slots

According to a communication sent by MIAL to airlines, the airport will reduce 33% of international departure slots at Mumbai T2, with the cuts rounded up to the next whole number. The attached schedule covers 46 airlines and 770 weekly international departure slots, of which 265 are to be temporarily discontinued.

The largest reduction is for IndiGo, with 74 weekly slots, followed by Air India with 33. Air India Express faces a reduction of seven slots, while Akasa Air faces 11 and SpiceJet five. Several major international carriers will also see reductions, including Etihad Airways and Emirates each facing 10 flight cancellations.

MIAL has given airlines until 4 PM on October 6 to identify the specific departure slots they want to temporarily discontinue.

But if an airline does not respond by the deadline, MIAL says it will determine the relevant slots itself, based on operational, capacity and implementation considerations. The final allocation plan and list of temporarily discontinued slots will subsequently be communicated to stakeholders.

This means the dispute is no longer only about whether airlines will shift existing international operations from Mumbai to Navi Mumbai. MIAL has now formally quantified the capacity reduction at Mumbai T2 and put a deadline on airlines to decide which operations will be affected.

Why is MIAL cutting T2 capacity?

The move is linked to the redevelopment of Mumbai airport's Terminal 1.

MIAL says that from October 26, it will begin reallocating vacated assets at T2, including check-in counters, baggage belts, boarding gates and operational office space to scheduled domestic operators.

The objective is to facilitate the transition of approximately 5 million passengers per annum from T1 to T2 as T1 undergoes redevelopment.

The airline-MIAL deadlock

The development comes against the backdrop of growing opposition from international airlines to the proposed transition.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), in a letter to the Civil Aviation Ministry earlier this month, said it was "fundamentally opposed to forced airline relocations" and argued that any transfer of operations should be voluntary and commercially and operationally viable.

IATA also said a reduction in Mumbai airport capacity should not be used to direct airlines to transfer a prescribed proportion of their existing operations to Navi Mumbai. It has also sought protection of airlines' historic Mumbai airport slot entitlements during the transition.

MIAL, meanwhile, has maintained that the T1 redevelopment timeline remains unchanged and that airlines have to plan for the transition.

Could passengers face cancellations?

The immediate impact for passengers will depend on which slots airlines ultimately choose to discontinue and how those slots translate into actual flight schedule changes.

However, because these are international departure slots in the winter schedule, the reduction could result in airlines having to cancel, reschedule or otherwise alter services, if affected slots cannot be accommodated elsewhere.

The airline-by-airline schedule shows the scale of the potential impact: IndiGo's 224 weekly international departure slots at T2 would fall by 74, while Air India's 100 weekly slots would fall by 33.

With the October 6 deadline fast approaching, the next question is whether airlines will voluntarily identify the slots they want to discontinue or if they will seek government's intervention.