How Mumbai Airport Staff Were Unsung Heroes During India-Pakistan Escalation: Founder’s LinkedIn Post Viral

V3 Ventures Co-Founder Arjun Vaidya has given a shout-out to Mumbai airport for its swift operations during the India-Pakistan military escalation.

Calling them “unsung” heroes, Vaidya credited the staff at Mumbai airport for “holding together” India’s skies during the unprecedented military standoff that lasted four days.

In a post on LinkedIn, Vaidya said, “One unsung hero in the entire India-Pakistan escalation is Mumbai Airport and its staff… Nobody’s talking about it. But they should be. While, of course, the media and all of us zoomed in on missiles, ceasefires, the politics and military ops – Mumbai ATC was holding India’s sky together. Silently. Seamlessly.”

With Pakistan closing its airspace and several northern airports shut during the incident, Mumbai saw a sudden “surge of over 60% in flight traffic”, he added.

Nearly two dozen airports in north Indian states were temporarily shut during the escalation as India defended its cities against Pakistan’s drones and missile attacks in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor.

Despite the pressure, the Mumbai airport managed operations seamlessly. According to Vaidya, the airport typically manages around 750 international overflights daily, all with just a single criss-cross runway. However, during the escalation, that number surged to nearly 1,200 overflights.

“But now it has to manage ~1,200 flights, pushing the total daily traffic in Mumbai’s airspace beyond 2,000 flights (when combined with the airport’s 900+ movements and domestic overflights),” he explained.

This resulted in a scenario equivalent to 10 planes trying to land at once, he said, adding that even one miscalculation would’ve been disastrous.

“Let’s also take a moment to salute the controllers, ground staff, and ops teams at Mumbai Airport and all the others,” Vaidya concluded his post, shared a week ago.

With over 14,000 likes and hundreds of comments, people echoed similar sentiments as they praised the airport staff for their efforts to ensure seamless air traffic movement during the emergency.

“Proud to be an ATC”, a comment by a user identified as Ashutosh Yadav, read. According to his LinkedIn profile, Yadav works as an air traffic controller with the Airports Authority of India.