Delhi displaces Mumbai as India's Busiest Airport

The crude oil crisis has made Delhi the country’s busiest airport in terms of number of daily flight movements, beating Mumbai for the first time ever. Before jet fuel price started its upward trend, Mumbai used to handle 750 to 760 flights daily. But now with airlines reducing flights to cut losses, Mumbai — the hub of most domestic carriers — has witnessed the maximum cancellations and now this figure is down to an average of 650. Delhi, on the other hand, has not witnessed such a dramatic reduction in flights and now its daily movement of over 700 flights (down from 720 to 730 earlier) is higher than Mumbai, making it the airport witnessing maximum number of flights on a daily basis. Mumbai had historically been the busiest airport in terms of flight and passenger movements. Now it retains the lead only in terms of number of fliers. Ironically, the overall fall in aircraft movements is happening at a time when airports like Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and some others are gearing up to handle more traffic. Mumbai was the only place where a new runway could have come up only at the proposed Navi Mumbai airport at least five years later.