GROUND REPORT

JET AIRWAYS’ suspension in April this year led to a scramble among airlines for slots at most major airports. The rush was for a reason. Over the past few years, airports at metros have been gradually running out of slots. Mumbai has run out of capacity. The last airline to add slots at Mumbai on domestic routes was AirAsia India, and what it got was an odd slot around midnight. In New Delhi, the country’s largest and busiest airport, the situation is much the same. The airport had to operationalise the decommissioned Terminal 2 to enhance capacity.

While Mumbai and Delhi are old airports, with the former being the world’s busiest single-runway airport, surprisingly, capacity constraints have