The ministry for civil aviation has revived the plan to expand the Juhu Airport here to enable taking away the burden of traffic from the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.
"Juhu Airport will be very important in view of the delay in the construction of the new airport at Navi Mumbai. There are constraints at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and it will not be able to handle additional traffic," Minister for Civil Aviation Ajit Singh told reporters today after his talks with Maharashtra Chief Minister, Prithviraj Chavan, on Saturday.
Plans include extending Juhu Airport's main runway into the sea to enable it to handle ATR turbo prop planes and even Airbus A320 planes.
However, the runway extension work will require environment clearance and could run into rough weather.
The Maharashtra government had informed the civil aviation ministry that Juhu residents could oppose the slicing of Juhu beach for the runway extension and the project could face litigation.
