26-hour nightmare for Egypt Air travellers as Mumbai airport flooded

Muscat: A flight from Cairo to Mumbai that should have taken seven hours, landed in India after a marathon 26 hours, due to the ongoing flooding in Mumbai.
Passengers on the Egypt Air plane were expecting to fly from Cairo to Mumbai International Airport on Tuesday. But the flight was diverted to Muscat International Airport because of the heavy rains at Mumbai Airport.
The flight finally landed at Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport on Wednesday night.
Egypt Air flight 968 was carrying 101 passengers when it took off from Cairo Airport at 4.20 pm local time on Tuesday, with an estimated time of arrival of 1.30 am at Mumbai International Airport.
But due to bad weather in Mumbai, and problems caused by an aircraft that overshot the Mumbai airport runway and became stuck in the mud, the Egypt Air flight was diverted to Muscat International Airport, where the flight landed at 11 pm, an official of Egypt Air in Muscat said.
The flight finally left Muscat International Airport around 6 pm on Wednesday for Mumbai, arriving three hours later.
During their stay in Muscat, the passengers were brought to the airport and repeatedly provided with food. “They were taken care of properly,” the official said.
But not everybody in the flight was happy. “Horrible experience on Egypt Air flight 968. Stranded at Muscat Airport for last 12 hours, and you are looking to encourage tourism in Egypt,” one of them wrote on twitter.
Last week, heavy rains caused massive disruptions in flight operations at Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport, where more than 108 flights were cancelled.
Aircraft traffic on the main runway of the Mumbai airport was restored on Wednesday, after the airport operator removed the aircraft which had become caught in mud after landing amid heavy rains on Tuesday.
Nearly 180 flights were cancelled during the main runway closure period at Mumbai, which lasted for over 25 hours.
Mumbai airport, the second busiest in India, has two crossing runways.
While the primary runway can handle up to 48 arrivals and departures per hour, the secondary runway has a capacity of 35 flights per hour. Overall, there are 930 flight arrivals and departures at the Mumbai airport every day.