(image-LinkedIn/Arjun Vaidya)
Mumbai, Maharashtra: As India and Pakistan engaged in their most dangerous military exchange in recent years, triggered by the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, an unlikely hero emerged far from the Line of Control — Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. With much of the national discourse focused on missiles, ceasefires, and battlefield operations, Arjun Vaidya, Co-Founder of V3 Ventures, turned the spotlight to the Mumbai air traffic control team, calling them “an unsung hero” of the crisis.
Taking to LinkedIn, Vaidya wrote, “Nobody’s talking about it. But they should be.” While the army and air force were defending the nation on the ground and in the skies, Vaidya noted, “Mumbai ATC was holding India’s sky together. Silently. Seamlessly.”
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The escalation, which saw India launch “Operation Sindoor” against the terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan retaliating with “Bunyan-un-Marsoos,” had severe consequences for civilian air travel. Pakistan promptly shut its airspace, and India closed over 20 airports in the north, 32 at one point in time. The result: chaos in the skies.
According to Vaidya, this led to a 60% surge in flights through Mumbai’s already congested airspace. “Mumbai airport handles about 750 international overflights daily. With one criss-cross runway. But now it had 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 noted. International carriers such as British Airways, Lufthansa, and Thai Airways had to reroute through Mumbai, turning BOM into the region’s primary aerial gateway.
“Imagine 10 planes trying to land at once. Imagine if even one miscalculation happened. One wrong clearance. One delay too long,” Vaidya wrote, underlining the immense pressure on Mumbai’s controllers and ground staff. “Keeping the airport open and operations as usual is crucial for business, movement but also a sense of normalcy. It reduces panic.”
He added a personal anecdote to highlight the importance of that normalcy: “Yesterday, I had a bunch of global students from Tetr College of Business doing a semester in India. They flew down from Delhi to meet me in Mumbai. And, they’ll fly back today – safely.” The implication was clear — had Mumbai’s ATC faltered, the fallout wouldn’t just be logistical, but psychological.
Vaidya also pointed to the potential reputational risk India faced. “One miscalculation by the ATC would’ve been disastrous. And, spun globally as ‘India can’t handle war-time coordination’.”
“So while we salute our Army and Air Force… let’s also take a moment to salute the controllers, ground staff, and ops teams at Mumbai Airport and all the others,” said Vaidya.
“They didn’t fight. But they stopped panic from spreading. And in a way, that’s morale building and strategy too,” he added.
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As reports continue to emerge about the extensive civilian impact of the conflict — from flight disruptions to strikes on schools and hospitals — the Mumbai airport’s ability to manage thousands of aircraft movements under duress may have prevented further instability.
“P.S. In a conflict, not every hero wears a uniform. Some wear headsets, carry logbooks, and save the day 30,000 feet above ground,” Vaidya signed off, reminding a conflict-weary nation that not all acts of heroism take place on the frontlines. Some happen in control towers.
