Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport is officially the busiest single runway airport in the world. The airport recently broke the world record for the most flights handled in a single day from a single runway with a massive 969 take offs and landings.
You may be wondering which airport previously held the record, well it was actually already held by Chhatrapati Shivaji International, they’ve simply broken their own world record! Their previous record being 935 flights in 24 hours.
The airport regularly handles over 900 planes a day, but on the record breaking day there was quite a bit of extra traffic due to private jets and charter flights.
But doesn’t the airport have two runways?
A-ha! Well spotted! The Mumbai airport does have two runways, but as only one can be used at once, due to them crossing over each other, they are eligible for this world record achievement. There is a shortage of land around the airport, so building an extra runway that can be used at the same time as the current one is pretty much an impossibility. So, they have to rely on speed and efficiency to increase traffic to and from this popular airport, to meet the ever increasing demand. They do this in a rather spectacular fashion with sometimes as little as 65 seconds between aircraft on the runway!
An achievement that’s hard to beat
This level of traffic is going to be very hard to surpass. With a single usable runway, Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport is in the same category as the likes of Geneva and London Gatwick, but no other airport to date has reached these high levels of traffic.
Great expectations
Chhatrapati Shivaji airport are certainly aiming high. Not content with smashing their own world record, a spokesperson for the airport recently commented that they were hoping to handle more than 1000 landings and take offs per 24 hours soon!
What is the busiest airport in the world overall?
Chhatrapati Shivaji has just one runway that be can used at any one time, but what about all those airports with multiple runways? When you take all these into account, the airport with the most traffic is Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta, but of course, this does have six runways! Of the top ten busiest airports, eight of them are US airports, with only Tokyo International and Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris making it into the top ten from elsewhere in the world.
Emily is an avid writer with a passion for the travel industry. She also loves learning and writing about nutrition and healthy living. Emily is based in the UK.
