Flights were delayed by 30 minutes at Mumbai airport on Thursday as its main runway was closed for an hour to repair the potholes created by incessant rains. The secondary runway, however, was in operation.The main runway 09-27 was shut from 9.20am to 10.23am.According to Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) officials, the runway was in bad shape as they were not able to carry out routine weekly maintenance work.For the past two weeks, we have not been able to carry out the maintenance work due to heavy rains. As a result, there has been surface disintegration in some areas of the runway, said the MIAL spokesperson.

The secondary runway 14-32 was used for operations as the visibility was better Thursday morning. The runway is not used for monsoon operations. But the sudden closure of the main runway still impacted the arrivals and departures which were late by 30 minutes on an average, said an air traffic control ATC official from Mumbai airport.A Singapore airline flight was diverted to Chennai as the airline does not use secondary runway as a matter of policy. The secondary runway is a shorter runway and the airline’s aircraft Boeing 777-200 is bigger than some usual ones.This is the second time in the past three days runway 09-27 was shut for maintenance.On August 3, the runway was closed for 30 minutes from 12.30pm to 1pm for maintenance as there was water-logging and even some potholes were formed due to heavy rains on the threshold (beginning) point of the runway up to 100 metres. The runway is normally closed on Tuesdays and Fridays for routine maintenance.