India’s airports are experiencing at least three bird strikes every day, according to figures released by the country’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). In the past month alone, four flights have had to make emergency landings because of these collisions.
New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IDI) Airport experienced the highest number of bird strikes, according to the DGCA figures. IDI Airport has recorded 695 such incidents since 2020, including 41 over the first half of this year. Mumbai took second place with 407 confirmed bird strikes, followed by Bengaluru with 343.
1278 confirmed bird strikes were reported to the DGCA in 2024, a figure that has more than doubled over five years. In 2019, India’s airports reported just 528 bird strikes.
Indian airports have rolled out a number of measures to tackle this problem as part of their compulsory Wildlife Hazard Management Plans (WHMPs). These include careful management of grass and other attractants within the aerodrome, and increased use of scaring methods to frighten birds away from the runway. However, not all factors are directly within their control.
“While the airport continues to strengthen in-house measures, maintaining airside safety is also influenced by surrounding land use,” an official for GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd told the Times of India. The official highlighted the presence of waste processing facilities near the airport, saying these have “occasionally been flagged for non-compliance with environmental norms.”
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