Mumbai airport handles 1,003 flights in a day, breaks own record

The Mumbai international airport handled 1,003 flights on Tuesday June 5, breaking its previous record of 980 flights in February 2018.

The Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport is one of the world's busiest single-runway airports.

The sudden surge was because several flights that had been diverted on Monday were accommodated on Tuesday. The flights had been diverted due to heavy rainfall.

Around 20 flights had been diverted to surrounding airports on Monday, The Economic Times reports.

"Due to heavy rainfall, the aircraft were diverted to the nearby airports and were later accommodated immediately as the rain stopped, which lead to increase in flight movements," Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) said in a statement.

MIAL is a joint venture between the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and GVK Industries.

The Mumbai airport has two runways, but since they cross each other, only one can be used at a time.

The airport had also handled the record number of flights in a single day in November 2017, managing 969 take-offs and landings in a 24-hour period.

The airport recorded passenger traffic of 48.5 million in 2017-2018, according to data on the website of the Association of Private Airport Operators.