By IANS,
Mumbai: No more terrible Tuesdays at Mumbai International Airport from now on. After more than 22 weeks, the reconstruction work of the airport runway intersection was successfully completed here Tuesday evening, an official said.
The complex project had started October 27, 2009 and was finally completed in 22 weeks during which there were major flight restrictions on all Tuesdays at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.
The work was carried out on a 54,000 square metres area which constitutes the intersection of two cross-runways — 09-27 and 14-32 — which has been completely re-laid with over 24,000 tonnes of asphalt, concrete and bitumen.
A duct bank measuring 2,860 metres in length and a 9,390 metre-long conduit were laid at the intersection to enable cables for airfield ground lighting.
Besides these, reconstruction work was also completed at the junction of taxiway E and runway 09-27 in an area of around 15,000 sq metres, and grading work on a 32,500 sq metres area along the sides of the intersection.
This mammoth project necessitated the closure of the full main runway (09-27) for six hours from noon to 6 p.m. on all Tuesdays.
During that period, a shortened runway – 27-A – had been put to use to facilitate limited flight operations; it handled a total 1,353 flights over the past 22 Tuesdays.
A team comprising 61 engineers and over 500 field workers was deployed, besides more than 100 heavy and light machines, at the runway intersection every Tuesday for the past 22 weeks to complete the huge task.
The Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd. (MIAL) is a joint venture between the GVK-SA consortium and the Airports Authority of India.
MIAL was awarded the mandate to modernize and upgrade CSIA in April 2006. CSIA catered to 24.8 million passengers and 521,368 tonnes of cargo during January – December 2009.